Franca Viola – rape survivor

Sicilian heroine achieved a change in the attitude towards rape in Italy

Franca Viola was kept
prisoner for eight days

Franca Viola, who survived a horrific kidnapping and a series of rapes and heroically resisted societal pressure to marry her attacker afterwards, was born on this day in 1948 in Alcamo in Sicily.

She became famous throughout Italy in the 1960s for refusing to undergo what was called a matrimonio riparatore - a rehabilitating marriage - to her rapist, which would have enabled her to be accepted in Sicilian society despite having lost her virginity while still unmarried.

Franca was born in the rural town of Alcamo and was the oldest daughter of a farmer and his wife. At the age of 15, Franca became engaged to Filippo Melodia, who was 23 and the nephew of a Mafia member. 

After Melodia was arrested for theft, Franca’s father insisted that she broke off the engagement with him and Melodia subsequently went to live in Germany.

Two years later, after Franca had become engaged to another man, Melodia returned to Alcamo and tried to get back into her life. He started stalking her and threatened her father, Bernardo, and her new fiancé.

In the early hours of Boxing Day in 1965, Melodia and a group of about 12 armed men broke into Franca’s family home and kidnapped her. They dragged her into a car after injuring her mother.  They also abducted her eight-year-old brother, Mariano, because he refused to let go of his sister.

Mariano was released a few hours later, but Franca was kept prisoner for eight days, during which she was raped many times. Melodia told her that she would now be forced to marry him so that she did not become a dishonoured woman in the eyes of the community, but she still refused him.

Pope Paul VI with Franca Viola
soon after she was married

Melodia eventually contacted Franca’s father to try to strike a deal with him. He wanted her father to agree to an arrangement that was sometimes made between two Sicilian families after a couple had eloped together. 

Franca’s father, Bernardo, pretended to negotiate with him, but all the while he was secretly collaborating with the Carabinieri, who were preparing an operation to rescue his daughter.

After Franca was freed and her kidnappers had been arrested, her father asked her if she wanted to marry Melodia. When she told him she did not want to marry him, her father said he would do everything he could to help her.

By refusing a so-called ‘rehabilitating marriage’, Franca was challenging what was common practice in Sicily at the time. If she remained unmarried, having lost her virginity, she would become ‘una donna svergognata’ - a shameless woman.

At the time, the Italian Penal Code regarded rape as a crime against public morality, rather than as a violent attack on a person. A rehabilitating marriage meant that a rapist’s crime was automatically expunged.

Viola pictured during a police
interrogation in Sicily

After Franca refused to marry her attacker, her family were threatened and persecuted by some of the local people and their vineyard and barn were set on fire.

The resulting trial attracted a lot of media and public attention. Melodia’s lawyers claimed Franca had consented to an elopement, rather than having been kidnapped in violent circumstances.

However, when the trial finished in 1966 Melodia was found guilty and sentenced to 11 years in prison. This sentence was later reduced to ten years, with a two-year period of compulsory residence in Modena imposed upon him. Some of his fellow gang members were acquitted and the rest received brief sentences.

Two years after Melodia was released from prison, he was killed in a Mafia-style execution before he could return to Sicily.

The article of Italian law that stipulated a rapist could vacate his crime by marrying his victim was not abolished until 1981, and sexual violence did not become a crime against the person instead of a crime against public morality in Italy until 1996. This was 30 years after Melodia was found guilty of raping Franca Viola.

In 1968, when Franca was nearly 21, she married Giuseppe Ruisi, an accountant, who she had known and liked since childhood. It is claimed he was threatened and that he had to request a firearms licence after applying for the marriage licence, to protect himself and his bride-to-be from harm.

Italian President Giuseppe Saragat sent the couple a wedding gift and Pope Paul VI received them in a private audience soon after their wedding. They went on to have three children together. 

Three films have been made based on Franca’s story and a book about her case was written by Sicilian author Beatrice Monroy. Franca is now 77 years old and still lives in Sicily.

The Basilica di Santa Maria
Assunta in Alcamo

Travel tip:

Alcamo, the birthplace of Franca Viola, is a town of almost 45,000 residents in the province of Trapani in Sicily, located about 50km (31 miles) north of the city of Trapani and the same distance from the capital of the island, Palermo. To the north of Alcamo is the Tyrrhenian Sea and to the west, the town of Castellammare del Golfo, a beautiful seaside town that has been used as a location in several films and was also featured in an episode in the Inspector Montalbano television series, entitled A Sense of Touch. Strategically important in both the Roman and Byzantine empires and an important Arab settlement, Alcamo has many historic buildings. These include the restored Castello Conti di Modica, which dates back to the 14th or 15th centuries and now houses a museum, and some good examples of Baroque architecture in the Basilica di Santa Maria Assunta, which contains columns of red marble extracted from Monte Bonifato and frescoes and paintings by the Flemish artist Guglielmo Borremans, and the Chiesa dei Santissimi Paolo e Bartolomeo.

Trapani, now a popular tourist destination,
is notable for its curving harbour

Travel tip:

Trapani is a large city with ancient origins situated on the west coast of Sicily. Its Mediterranean climate of long summers and mild winters along with its nearby airport have made it an attractive destination for tourists. It has some beautiful historic buildings, including the Basilica and Sanctuary of Maria Santissima Annunziata. The city has a big fishing industry and produces its own pesto, a sauce made alla trapanese - using Sicilian almonds instead of pine nuts. The port is notable for a curving harbour, where Peter of Aragon landed in 1282 to begin the Spanish occupation of Sicily.  Well-placed strategically to trade with Africa as well as the Italian mainland, Trapani was once the hub of a commercial network that stretched from Carthage in what is now Tunisia to Venice. Nowadays, the port is used by ferries serving Tunisia and the smaller islands, as well as other Italian ports.  

Also on this day:

1324: The death of explorer Marco Polo

1878: The death of Victor Emmanuel II, the first King of Italy

1878: Umberto I succeeds Victor Emmanuel II

1944: The birth of architect Massimiliano Fuksas

2004: The death of political philosopher Norberto Bobbio

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Aulus Vitellius - Roman emperor

Brief reign marked by gluttony and ineptitude

Vitellius had a reputation
for extravagance 

Aulus Vitellius, the third leader of Rome in the so-called Year of the Four Emperors, who history remembers mainly as a glutton, drunkard and gambler, died on this day in 69AD in Rome.

Captured by supporters of his successor, Vespasian, he was dragged through the streets of the capital to the Scalae Gemoniae - the Gemonian Stairs - a flight of steps leading from the Capitoline Hill to the Forum that acquired a symbolic identity as a place of execution, where he was beaten to death.

Vitellius had been emperor for just eight months, his death bringing to an end a period of civil war that brought the death of Nero, followed by the chaos of three short-lived administrations before Vespasian’s accession restored order and ushered in a decade of relative stability.

Born in 15AD in Nuceria Alfaterna - now the Campanian town of Nocera Superiore - Vitellius was the son of Lucius Vitellius, a censor in the employ of the emperor Claudius who served as a consul three times and was a former governor of Syria.

Vitellius spent most of his youth on Capri as a noble companion of the retired Emperor Tiberius. He found favour with successive emperors in Caligula, though chariot racing, Claudius, who admired his dice playing, and Nero, whom he would flatter at public events by persuading him to sing and play the lute.

This enabled Vitellius to secure prestigious appointments such as Minister of Public Works and governor-general of Africa. 

The emperor Caligula was among
those Vitellius befriended

His reputation for gluttony and gambling soon went before him. According to the historian Suetonius, Vitellius used emetics to enable him to indulge in as many as four banquets in a single day. In one such feast, laid on by his brother, Lucius, the table is said to have groaned under the weight of 2,000 fishes and 7,000 birds. 

He acquired virtually no military experience, so it came as a surprise when Galba, who had succeeded Nero as emperor, appointed him to be governor of Germania Inferior in 68. Suetonius speculated that Galba had reasoned that Vitellius, consumed by his addiction to excess, would be satisfied with the wealth and prestige that came with the appointment and pose no threat to his power. 

The Germanic armies, however, saw things differently. They took to Vitellius, who made himself popular with his generosity and scant attention to discipline, and saw an opportunity to seize power from Galba, with whom they shared a mutual distrust.

Led by Caecina and Fabius Valens, commanders of two legions on the Rhine, organised a revolt. At the beginning of 69, they refused to renew their vows of allegiance to Galba and, in Cologne, proclaimed Vitellius as emperor. 

Galba was killed shortly afterwards by members of the Praetorian Guard. He had refused to pay their bonuses and was in the habit of imposing heavy fines on or vengefully destroying towns that did not declare their allegiance to him and it did not take much in the way of bribes from Marcus Salvius Otho, a military commander with his eyes on power, to persuade them to murder him.

The Germanic armies remained intent on installing Vitellius as emperor in Rome nonetheless and, with the support of the armies of Gaul, Britannia and the central province of Raetia, marched on the capital.

Vespasian built a powerbase in the 
eastern empire before marching on Rome

They confronted Otho’s army at the Battle of Bedriacum and achieved a resounding victory, prompting Otho to take his own life. Vitellius was recognised emperor by the Roman Senate.

Roman historians were not united in their assessment of Vitellius’s term in office. While Suetonius described him as an unambitious leader whose time was dominated by his taste for luxury and vengeful cruelty, and pushing the imperial treasury close to bankruptcy, other historians, such as Tacitus, credit him with worthwhile and lasting changes to the way the empire was governed.

Moreover, he won favour with Rome’s lower classes by restoring the entertainments for the masses that had made Nero popular.

However, while Vitellius was recognised as emperor in Rome, the picture elsewhere was different. 

The eastern provinces proclaimed a rival emperor in their commander, Titus Flavius Vespasianus, who had the support of the armies of the East, Dalmatia and Illyricum.  Vespasian, as he was known, had been a military leader during the invasion of Britain in 43AD and built a powerbase following his appointment by Nero as commander in Judea, charged with quelling the Great Jewish Revolt of 67AD. 

Vitellius despatched several legions, led by Caecina, only for Caecina, who had become unhappy with Vitellius's indisciplined conduct, to attempt to defect. This undermined the morale of the Vitellian troops and they were badly defeated at the Second Battle of Bedriacum. 

Fearing his imminent downfall as Vespasian’s army headed towards Rome, Vitellius was said to have agreed on the terms of abdication with Marcus Antonius Primus, the military commander of Vespasian's forces.  But the Praetorian Guard refused to allow him to sign the agreement.

Instead, a fierce battle ensued, with the mainly civilian supporters of Vitellius attacking Vespasian’s soldiers with rocks, javelins and heavy tiles ripped from walls and floors. Many buildings were destroyed and casualties from both sides combined may have exceeded 50,000.

Eventually, however, Vitellius was captured, dragged through the streets to meet his fate on the Scalae Gemoniae, his severed head then paraded around the city. Vespasian was pronounced emperor the next day and would rule for 10 years.

A 19th century painting
of Vitellius's last moments

Travel tip:

The Gemonian Stairs were a flight of steps in ancient Rome which acquired an infamous reputation in Roman history as a place of execution, earning the nickname the Stairs of Mourning. They led from Capitoline Hill down to the Roman Forum, passing the Tabularium and the Temple of Concord on one side, and the Mamertine Prison on the other. The location of the steps is thought to coincide roughly with the current Via di San Pietro in Carcere, which passes the ruins of the Mamertine Prison. It is believed they became a place of execution during the later years of the reign of Tiberius. It was customary for the condemned to be strangled before their bodies were left to rot, the remains picked at by birds and dogs before being thrown in the Tiber.  Those executed were usually common criminals, their undignified end intended to heap shame on their families. Apart from Vitellius, the most high profile individual to be slain there was probably Lucius Aelius Sejanus, who was Prefect of the Praetorian Guard under Tiberius. He was executed for treason, suspected of conspiracy to kill his employer.

The remains of a Roman necropolis
discovered near Nocera Superiore

Travel tip:

The birthplace of Vitellius, Nuceria Alfaterna, evolved over time into the present day Nocera Superiore, a town in the province of Salerno in Campania. It can be found just off the main highway connecting Naples, about 42km (26 miles) to the northwest, with Salerno, about 15km (nine miles) to the southeast. The railway line between those two cities also passes through Nocera Superiore. The town is about 21km (13 miles) from the ruins of Pompeii.  It suffered serious damage when Vesuvius erupted in 79AD, which while not as catastrophic as that inflicted on some of its neighbours was enough to cause irreparable harm to its prosperity. Among the ruins in the town are those of an Hellenistic-Roman theatre and a monumental Roman necropolis, offering a glimpse into ancient Roman burial practices. Remains also exist of an amphitheatre unearthed as recently as 1926 and city walls that date back to the 2nd century BC.

Also on this day:

1676: The birth of San Leonardo da Porto Maurizio

1856: The death of Sicilian patriot Francesco Bentivegna

1947: The birth of singer and TV presenter Gigliola Cinquetti

1948: The birth of journalist Giuliana Sgrena

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Enrico Vanzini - Dachau survivor

Italian internee forced to work for Nazis

Enrico Vanzini kept his story
private for 60 years after WW2

Enrico Vanzini, a remarkable centenarian former soldier who survived seven months in a concentration camp after being forced to assist his captors as his fellow detainees were subjected to the horrors perpetrated by the Nazi regime, was born on this day in 1922 in the town of Fagnano Olona in Lombardy.

Vanzini, who was stationed with the Italian army in Greece for much of World War Two, was arrested in September 1943 after swearing allegiance to the King of Italy rather than Benito Mussolini’s Republic of Salò.

He spent the remainder of the conflict as a prisoner of war in Germany, at the end of which he was forced to work as a member of the so-called Sonderkommando, a group of prisoners made to collaborate with the Nazi SS in the extermination of mainly Jewish detainees in their death camps.

Vanzini was made to assist among other things with the cremation of bodies at Dachau, just outside Munich, where he spent seven months. The ordeal ended when the camp was liberated by the Allies in April 1945, at which point he weighed just 64lbs (29kg).

At the age of 102 and resident of a care home in Padua, he is the only Italian former Sonderkommando still alive.

In his book, entitled L'ultimo sonderkommando italiano - The Last Italian Sonderkommando - he described himself as “an ordinary village lad” in Fagnano. He was born just 10 days after Mussolini’s Fascists took power in Italy.

The gates of the Dachau complex near
Munich, soon after it was liberated

His father, who had been a soldier in World War One, was no supporter of the Fascist regime and Vanzini grew up to have similar sentiments. Yet at the age of 18 he found himself fighting on the side of Mussolini and the Germans.

Having enlisted in the artillery in the Alba Barracks with the outbreak of war in 1939, he was initially destined for the Russian front but was spared being one of 115,000 Italians killed there by a bout of appendicitis. When he had recovered sufficiently to resume service, he was sent instead to Greece, where Italian casualties were far fewer.

He was still in Greece when Mussolini was arrested on the orders of the Italian monarch, King Victor Emmanuel III, in July 1943, and detained at a remote hotel in the Apennine mountains.  When the dictator was freed by German paratroopers two months later and installed as leader of the puppet state of Salò in Nazi-occupied northern Italy, Vanzini refused to be part of the new republic, swearing loyalty to the King instead.

Subsequently arrested, he became a prisoner of war and was put on a train in Athens and taken to the city of Ingolstadt in Bavaria, where he was forced to work in a tank chassis factory.

A year after his arrival there, the factory was destroyed in an American bombing raid and he and two companions slipped away in the ensuing chaos, only to be recaptured 10 days later in the countryside near Munich. Ironically, they were betrayed by an Italian girl who befriended them but turned out to be a spy working for the Germans.

Vanzini wrote a book about
his experience at Dachau

The trio were sent to Buchenwald and initially were condemned to death by firing squad. Arguing that they fled the Ingolstadt factory for their own safety, they were spared death but only after being earmarked to work in the gas chambers at Dachau, where their grim duties included retrieving bodies for cremation.

Thankfully, the arrival of Allied troops at Dachau allowed Vanzini to return home. Once he had regained his health, he had a career as a bus or lorry driver and lived a quiet life, keeping his experiences to himself for 60 years before, in 2003, he began to share his stories. At first he held conferences in schools and public halls, later participating in a documentary film and eventually writing his book.

On Holocaust Remembrance Day, in January, 2013 the President of the Republic, Giorgio Napolitano, presented him with the Medal of Honour.

Extraordinarily, given what he had been through, Vanzini has enjoyed a remarkably long and healthy life. He was still fit enough at 99 years of age to be granted a two-year extension to his driver’s licence and, having revealed in an interview his lifelong devotion to the Inter-Milan football team, was presented with a special club shirt on his 100th birthday.

The Visconti Castle at Fagnano Olona has stood
guard over the town since Mediaeval times

Travel tip:

Fagnano Olona, where Vanzini was born, is a town of 12,301 inhabitants about 19km (12 miles) south of the city of Varese. Originally a Roman settlement, it occupied a strategic position on the Olona river. A castle built there in the Middle Ages was fought for by both the Della Torre and Visconti families in the 13th century and the armies of France and Spain 200 years later. The town has a number of important religious buildings including the Sanctuary of the Madonna della Selva and the parish church of San Gaudenzio. The mediaeval Visconti Castle in Piazza Cavour, between the centre of the town and the Olona river, today houses the town hall.

The waterfront at modern-day Salò, which is a
thriving resort on picturesque Lake Garda

Travel tip:

For all its associations with Mussolini and his Nazi allies, the town of Salò on the banks of Lake Garda is an attractive resort known for having the longest promenade on the lake.  The main sights  in Salò are the Duomo di Santa Maria Annunziata, which was rebuilt in late Gothic style in the 15th century and the Palazzo della Magnifica Patria, which houses an exhibition of important historical documents. There is also MuSa, il Museo di Salò, which opened in 2015 in la Chiesa di Santa Giustina in Via Brunati, which has exhibitions about the history of the town, including its brief period as a republic.  Mussolini’s home during the brief life of the Republic of Salò is now the Grand Hotel Feltrinelli in Via Rimembranza in Gargnano, a short distance along the coast of the lake.

Also on this day:

1626: The consecration of St Peter’s Basilica in Rome

1630: The birth of Holy Roman Empress Eleonora Gonzaga

1804: The birth of general and statesman Alfonso Ferrero La Marmora

1849: The birth of builder and architect Stefano Cardu

1891: The birth of architect and designer Gio Ponti

1906: The birth of publisher Gianni Mazzocchi

1911: The birth of poet Attilio Bertolucci

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