Zàini - chocolate manufacturer

First factory opened in Via Carlo de Cristoforis in Milan

The distinctive Zàini logo has become known
in 80 countries around the world

The Milan chocolate producer Zàini was founded on this day in 1913 when the company’s first factory opened in the Porta Garibaldi district of the city.

The plant, opened by Luigi Zàini, a young entrepreneur, in Via Carlo de Cristoforis, was advertised as a ‘Factory of Chocolate, Cocoa, Candies, Jams and Similar’.

Zàini, who had experience in the confectionery business as an importer of biscuits, jams and other sweet products from northern Europe, had noted the rapidly growing popularity of chocolate and thought the time was right to move on from his role as middleman and become a producer in his own right.

In Milan at the time there were around 15 chocolate factories, so competition was keen, but Luigi had a unique selling point in mind. His dream was to be able to satisfy any wish for something sweet, reportedly saying: “Everyone is different, so why aren’t we creating lots of different chocolates and sweets for each different person?”.

Luigi Zàini, in the centre of the front row, pictured
with all the employees at his first factory

Luigi flavoured his bars with rum, mandarin, vanilla and aniseed among other things and made them stand out by wrapping them in coverings inspired by the fashion for Stile Liberty design in architecture, furniture and decorative art.

And he put his entrepreneurial instincts to good use to make sure the public knew about Zàini’s rich dark chocolate bars. Years ahead of the football sticker craze launched by Giuseppe Panini in the 1960s, Luigi hit upon the idea of selling chocolate bars with free collectors’ cards featuring celebrity figures from the worlds of sport and entertainment, in particular footballers and silent movie stars.

In 1924, Luigi Zàini married Olga Torri, whose father owned a large grocery store in Milan. It was a second marriage for both following the loss of their first partners. The couple brought six children to the marriage from their previous relationships, including Luigi’s son Piero and daughter Rosetta, and had two of their own, Vittorio and Luisa.

Business continued to thrive and, in 1926, the company moved to a new factory in Via Carlo Imbonati in the Dergano district, about 2.5km (1.5 miles) from Via de Cristoforis. It remains the company’s headquarters today.

Sadly, Luigi Zàini died in 1938, struck down prematurely by serious illness. Olga, with whom Luigi shared an elegant house built within the courtyard of the factory premises, knew Luigi wanted the business to remain in the family after his death, and took the reins herself.

Olga Zàini, later to take over the business,
pictured with son Vittorio in around 1930

A woman of similar entrepreneurial spirit, she committed herself fully to the role. Olga was a strong believer that women had the same right to work as men and, under her leadership, Zàini became known for its high number of female employees.

World War Two presented new challenges. In order to protect the children, Olga relocated the family to Varese, a city some 50km (31 miles) away from Milan, midway between the great lakes of Como and Maggiore. She returned to Milan regularly to supervise production.

Situated in an industrial area of Milan close to major rail arteries into the city, the Zàini plant had the misfortune to be next to an anti-aircraft battery positioned to defend the area. Inevitably, heavy bombardments followed as Allied planes attacked the city and the factory suffered such enormous damage during a series of raids in 1943 that was effectively destroyed.

Yet Olga set about rebuilding it as soon as it was safe to do so, winning praise for putting much of the physical reconstruction work in the hands of the factory’s own employees to ensure they could continue to support their families.

Olga remained in charge of the business until the 1950s, when she took the bold step to rebrand Zàini’s traditional dark chocolate bar ‘Emilia’, after the family nanny who looked after her children while away in Varese, before handing over control to Vittorio and Piero.

The Zàini Milano chocolate shop in Via Carlo de
Cristoforis, near the site of the original factory

Under their guidance, Zàini added a gift range that included chocolates in decorative tins and cardboard packaging that enjoyed much popularity, as well as jars of boeri - a confection of dark praline and liqueur-soaked morello cherries, instantly recognisable for their distinctive red and gold individual wrappers.

Since the 1990s, Luigi Zàini spa has been run by a third generation of the family - Vittorio’s son and daughter, Luigi and Antonella.

Among their initiatives, with a nod to their grandmother’s commitment to helping women, is Le Nuove Donne del Cacao, a new line of chocolate bars introduced to support a female entrepreneurship project aimed at achieving equal opportunities for women cocoa farmers in the Ivory Coast.

In 2013, to mark the 100th anniversary of the business, Luigi and Antonella opened the Zàini Milano cafe and chocolate shop, in Via de Cristoforis, the same street where their grandfather had opened his first factory.

The company today, now the sole large-scale chocolate manufacturer in Milan, has 200 employees and three production plants, located in Milan and the nearby town of Senago, with Zàini products on sale in 80 countries around the world.

The striking, colourful design of the Centro
Maciachini in the Dergano district

Travel tip:

Dergano, where the Luigi Zàini brand is still based, is much changed from the industrial zone it was when the factory was bombed in World War Two. Where factories once stood, complexes such as the Centro Maciachini, built on the site formerly occupied by Carlo Erba pharmaceutical company, abandoned in the 1990s, which comprises among other things a commercial sector, a food park and the Teatro Bruno Munari.  Dergano was once home to Armenia Films, built in 1917 and once seen as a rival to Rome’s Cinecittà. The entrance to the studios, where the great director Luchino Visconti shot his first film, still stands in Via Baldinucci. Once a rural village, the area again has the feel of a small community with a number of cafes and restaurants and independent shops. 

The ultra-modern Piazza Gae Aulenti is a feature
of Milan's fashionable Porta Garibaldi district

Travel tip:

Just a 15-minute walk from the Milan city centre, Porta Garibaldi is popular amongst tourists and locals alike for its restaurants, bars and nightlife. Corso Como, a wide pedestrianised thoroughfare leading directly to the neoclassical Porta Garibaldi arch, a Doric-style gateway built in the 19th century, has pavement cafes and fashion boutiques. The area is also famous for its avant-garde architecture and the impressive Piazza Gae Aulenti, a futuristic square designed by the Argentinian architect César Pelli, who also designed the square’s 231-metre (758ft) Unicredit Tower, which is Italy’s tallest building in the country. 

Also on this day:

1866: The birth of composer Francesco Cilea

1909: The birth of soprano Licia Albanese

1941: The birth of Italian president Sergio Mattarella 

1922: The birth of screenwriter and director Damiano Damiani 

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Francesco Tamagno - operatic tenor

19th century star was first to sing Verdi’s Otello

Francesco Tamagno was a world-renowned
star of 19th century opera

The operatic tenor Francesco Tamagno, most famous for singing the title role at the premiere of Giuseppe Verdi’s Otello at Teatro alla Scala in Milan in 1887, was born on this day in 1850 in Turin.

Tamagno, whose powerful voice and range put him a category of singers known as heroic tenors by being naturally suited to heroic roles, developed a reputation that enabled him to command high fees around the world and amass a considerable fortune.

During a career that spanned 32 years from his debut in 1873 to his premature death at the age of 54, Tamagno sang in some 55 operas and sacred works in 26 countries.

In addition to his association with Otello, he also was the first Gabriele Adorno in Verdi's 1881 revision of Simon Boccanegra, and appeared in the premiere of Verdi's Italian-language version of Don Carlos when it was staged at La Scala in 1884.

Five other operas in which Tamagno is acknowledged as the creator of leading roles include Carlos Gomes' Maria Tudor, Amilcare Ponchielli's Il figliol prodigo and Marion Delorme, Ruggero Leoncavallo's I Medici and Isidore de Lara's Messaline.

From a large family in the Borgo Dora area of Turin, Tamagno was the son of a wine seller who also kept a small trattoria.  He took music lessons at the city’s Liceo Musicale from the conductor and composer Carlo Pedrotti, who was able to arrange for him to sing some small parts at Turin's Teatro Regio, of which he was the director.

Tamagno as Otello in the 1887
premiere of Verdi's opera

One of Tamagno's earliest opportunities to perform in a major role came in January 1874 at the Teatro Bellini in Palermo, where he attracted considerable attention for an outstanding performance as Riccardo in Verdi's Un ballo in maschera.

Quickly given more engagements, he made his debut at La Scala in 1877, as Vasco de Gama in Giacomo Meyerbeer’s L’Africaine.

Over his career, Tamagno was lauded for his interpretations of many established parts, such as Manrico in Il trovatore (Verdi), Don Alvaro in La forza del destino (Verdi), the titles role in Ernani (Verdi) and Poliuto (Gaetano Donizetti), Arnold in Guillaume Tell (Gioachino Rossini), John of Leyden in Le prophète (Meyerbeer), Raoul in Les Huguenots (Meyerbeer), Vasco in L'Africaine, Robert in Robert le diable (Meyerbeer) and Eleazar in La Juive (Fromental Halévy).

Conductors of the standing of Franco Faccio, Luigi Mancinelli and Arturo Toscanini toured with Tamagno, who appeared opposite some of the most illustrious sopranos, baritones and basses in operatic history.

He witnessed the rise to fame of Enrico Caruso, predicting that the young Neapolitan would go on to become the leading Italian tenor of the 20th century. Tamagno and Caruso actually appeared on the same stage in February 1901, during a concert at La Scala organised by Toscanini as a tribute to Verdi, who had died the previous month.

Tamagno recognised the talent of Enrico
Caruso, with whom he once shared a stage

A big man with a physique to match his powerful voice, Tamagno developed chronic heart problems that caused his health to deteriorate in his late 40s, forcing him to quit the operatic stage. He would appear in concerts but had to give his last in 1904, in Ostend, Belgium.  Some recordings were preserved from the last two years of his professional life.

He retired to the villa in Varese, Lombardy, that he had owned since 1885, but his health did not improve and died in August 1905, from a heart attack. His body was buried in an elaborate mausoleum at Turin's General Cemetery.

Although Tamagno sang in the great opera houses of Barcelona, Paris, Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, New York, London, San Petersburg and Lisbon, he never deserted his roots and would periodically return to his neighbourhood around the Porta Palazzo in Turin, where he would meet up with old friends and give free performances to support local charities.

He had a daughter, Margherita, who had been born out of wedlock, but he took a close interest in her upbringing, writing letters to her from around the world as well as willingly giving her financial support. It was she who inherited his estate.

The charming, cobbled Via Borgo Dora winds through
the area where Francesco Tamagno grew up

Travel tip:

Borgo Dora is a small historic district of Turin, just north of Corso Regina Margherita around the Porta Palazzo, bordered to the north by the river Dora Riparia, only a few metres from Piazza Castello at the heart of the city. It is an area with a strong historical identity, the only survivor of the four villages that developed around the old gates of the city.  The Via Borgo Dora, which loops around the area in a southeast direction from the Turin Eye, the tethered hot air balloon situated by the river, is a charming cobbled street with many restaurants and antiques shops. The area is also famed for its markets. The Piazza della Repubblica hosts a massive open air market every Saturday, with between 700 and 1,000 stalls, while the area around the Cortile del Maglio is the home to an enormous flea market every second Sunday in the month.

The picturesque Lake Varese is just outside the city of
Varese in Lombardy, south of the main Italian lakes

Travel tip:

Varese, where Tamagno retired to a grand villa, is a city in Lombardy, 55km (34 miles) north of Milan and not far from Lake Maggiore. It is rich in castles, villas and gardens, many connected with the Borromeo family, who were from the area. The small Lake Varese is 8.5km (5 miles) long, set in low rolling hills just below Varese. Many visitors to the city are drawn to the Sacro Monte di Varese (the Sacred Hill of Varese), which features a picturesque walk passing 14 monuments and chapels, eventually reaching the monastery of Santa Maria del Monte.


More reading:

Mario del Monaco, the 20th century tenor famous for Otello

Franco Corelli: the 'prince of tenors'

Why tenor Tito Schipa divided opinions

Also on this day:

1503: The death of Florentine ruler Piero the Unfortunate

1908: Italy's worst earthquake

1947: The death of exiled King Victor Emmanuel III



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Alfredo Binda - cyclist

Five times Giro winner who was paid not to take part

Alfredo Binda is presented with a
bouquet after the 1933 Giro.

The five-times Giro d’Italia cycle race winner Alfredo Binda, who once  famously accepted a substantial cash payment from the race organisers not to take part, was born on this day in 1902 in the village of Cittiglio, just outside Varese in Lombardy.

The payment was offered because Binda was such a good rider - some say the greatest of all time - that the Gazzetta dello Sport, the daily sports newspaper that invented the race, feared for the future of the event - and their own sales - because of Binda’s dominance.

He had been the overall winner of the coveted pink jersey in 1925, 1927, 1928 and 1929, on one occasion winning 12 of the 15 stages, on another racking up nine stage victories in a row.

Binda, who was perceived as a rather cold and detached competitor, was never particularly popular outside his own circle of fans and his habit of ruthlessly seeing off one hyped-up new challenger after another did nothing to win him new fans.

By 1929 it became clear to the Gazzetta’s bosses that interest in the race was waning, sales of the famous pink paper were falling and advertisers were less willing to part with their cash.

Although in today’s market, football is the driver of the Gazzetta’s popularity, at that time the Giro was its lifeblood. There were fears that another Binda procession in 1930 could mean that the race would have to be discontinued, even that the paper might be forced to close.

Binda struggled to win over Italian fans. who
did not care for his cold and ruthless nature

As a result, the Gazzetta approached Binda and made him an unprecedented offer, rumoured to be in the region of 22,000 lira, in cash, NOT to take part in the 1930 Giro.  The story is that Binda did not need long to think about the offer, calculating that it was enough to buy a property in Milan, possibly two, that he could keep as investments and guarantee him a future income.

Instead, he took part in that year's Tour de France, winning two stages.  He returned to the Giro in later years, however, winning for the fifth time in 1933.

Binda’s early career was in France, where he had moved as a teenager, working for an uncle as an apprentice plasterer. He and his brother Primo spent all their free time cycling.

A gifted time trialist and climber, he began racing in September 1921, aged 19. He rode from his home in Nice to Milan in order to compete in the 1924 Tour of Lombardy, where he believed he might win the 500 lire prize on offer for the King of the Mountains. He did win it, in fact, finishing fourth in the race, and was offered a contract with the Legnano professional team.

Yet he could not endear himself to the cycling public, in which respect he was not helped by what happened in the 1925 Giro d'Italia, his first.

Binda's popularity increased after he
won the World Championships in Rome

The race was to be the last of the legendary champion Costante Girardengo and virtually the whole of Italy was willing him to come out on top. So when Binda, the 23-year-old debutant in the 22-day 3,520km (2,188 miles) event, turned up and won, it dashed a nation’s dreams.

In the event Girardengo continued racing, and he and Binda developed an abrasive rivalry.

In 1929, Girardengo introduced his protégé, Learco Guerra, as the latest "anti-Binda". Not only was Guerra, an expansive and open personality, popular with the public and the press, he also was favoured by the Italian Fascist Party. Binda was not cowed, however, and every defeat of Guerra only increased the antipathy towards him.

Not until 1932, when Binda won a third World Championship in front of a patriotic crowd in Rome, did the public start to warm to him.  World Champion in 1927, 1930 and 1932, he was the first to achieve three victories.

Afterwards, he could not be accused of giving nothing back to the sport.  Under his guidance as manager of the Italian national team, Fausto Coppi, Gino Bartali and Gastone Nencini all became Tour de France champions.

Binda died in his home village of Cittiglio in July 1996, aged 83.

Visitors to Cittiglio want to visit the
village's three waterfalls

Travel tip:

Alfredo Binda’s home village of Cittiglio is in the province of Varese and forms part of the mountain community Valli del Verbano, about 60km (37 miles) northwest of Milan and 15km (9 miles) from Varese.  Formerly the seat of the noble Luini or Luvini family, it has a well-preserved centre and the parish church of San Giulio has some interesting architectural features but most visitors to the area are drawn to the Cascate di Cittiglio, a series of three waterfalls set in woodland behind the town formed by the San Giulio stream, at heights between 474m and 324m above sea level.

The fifth of the Sacro Monte di Varese's chapels

Travel tip:

The city of Varese is in an area in the foothills of the Alps that owes its terrain to the activities of ancient glaciers that created 10 lakes in the immediate vicinity, including Lago di Varese, which this elegant provincial capital overlooks.  Most visitors to the city arrive there because of the Sacro Monte di Varese (the Sacred Hill of Varese), which features a picturesque walk passing 14 monuments and chapels, eventually reaching the monastery of Santa Maria del Monte.  But the town itself and the handsome villas and palaces in the centre and the surrounding countryside are interesting in their own right, reflecting the prosperity of the area. The grand Palazzo Estense is one, now the city's Municipio - the town hall.

More reading:

The forgotten champion Gastone Nencini

The cycling star who was a secret war hero

The tragedy of Marco Pantani

Also on this day:

1492: The controversial Rodrigo Borgia becomes Pope Alexander VI

1967: The birth of football coach Massimiliano Allegri


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Giuseppe Panza - art collector

Businessman amassed more than 2,500 pieces

Giuseppe Panza collected more than 2,500 works of art
between the 1950s and 1980s

The art collector Giuseppe Panza di Biumo, whose fascination with postwar art, particularly American, led him to build up one of the world’s most important collections, died on this day in 2010 in Milan.

A businessman who succeeded his father in making money from wine and property, Panza acquired more than 2,500 pieces in his lifetime, many of which he sold or donated to museums and art galleries.

Some he parted with for millions of dollars, although he always insisted that his motivation was never financial gain but the love of art.

Approximately 10 per cent of his collection remains in the 18th-century Villa Menafoglio Litta, his family home at Varese, north of Milan, where he created 50,000 square feet (4,600 sq m) of exhibition space.

He had an astute eye for talent, often identifying unknown artists who would go on to become collectible long before their works commanded premium prices.

For example, he anticipated the popularity of Minimalism in the 1960s, snapping up works by Donald Judd and Dan Flavin well before their careers had really taken off.

Panza's collection was one of the
largest assembled

Born in 1923 in Milan, Panza had a comfortable background. His father, Ernesto, was a wine distributor who invested in real estate and who in 1940 was given the title of count, which Giuseppe inherited, by King Vittorio Emanuele III.

He began reading books about art as an adolescent recovering from illness but it would be some years before he had the chance to develop his knowledge.  In the meantime, he fled wartime Italy for Switzerland in 1943, fearing that his misfortune to be living in the north of the country would lead to him being conscripted to fight on behalf of the Fascists and the Germans against the partisans in what already appeared to him to be a losing cause.

On his return to Italy after lying low in Lucerne, he enrolled at the University of Milan to study law, but never practised. Instead, he joined his father in the family business, although with no great enthusiasm. However, it was on a business trip to the United States in 1954 that he bought his first paintings and set forth on what would become a lifetime’s obsession.

With his wife, Rosa Giovanna Magnifico, he began a collection that included some work by European artists but which focussed primarily on the American artists who had captured his imagination. He bought his first work by the abstract expressionist Frank Kline, entitled Buttress, for $500. Years later, it was part of a collection of 80 works he sold for $11 million to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles.

Panza paid $500 for Frank Kline's Buttress, which he later
sold as part of a $11 million collection

He and Rosa were among the first patrons of Pop art, Minimalist and Conceptual Art, collecting works by Robert Rauschenberg, Roy Lichtenstein, Brice Marden and Robert Morris among others.

They brought their paintings back to their home in Corso Porta Romana in Milan, originally intending to stop at 100 but finding themselves unable to resist the lure of finding new works by new artists.

By the 1980s, Panza began to dismantle the collection.  His intention at first was to sell to Italian museums and galleries so that the pleasures he had derived from from assembling it over 25 years and more could be shared with his fellow Italians, but Italian institutions were not wealthy and there were few takers.

Instead, many works went back to America.  In addition to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, he struck a deal with the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, which acquired, as part of a $30 million package, more than 300 Minimalist sculptures and paintings in the 1990s.

The Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art also have substantial Giuseppe Panza collections.

Nearer home, he donated more than 200 works to the Lugano Cantonal Art Museum in Italian-speaking southern Switzerland and gave the Villa Menafoglio Litta to the Fondo Ambiente Italiano, the Italian equivalent of the National Trust.

He was survived by Rosa Giovanna and their children, Alessandro, Maria Giussepina, Federico, Giovanni, Giulio and Maria Luisa.

The Porta Romana in Milan stands on the site of one
of the original Roman gates into the city

Travel tip:

The Corso Porta Romana in Milan runs from the remains of the Porta Romana, one of the city’s traditional gateways, to Piazza Giuseppe Missori, in the city centre, a short distance from Piazza del Duomo. The visible remains of the gateway dates back to the 16th century Spanish walls, although there was a corresponding gate in the Roman walls. Indeed, Porta Romana was the first and the main imperial entrance to the city and the starting point of the road leading to Rome.

Piazza Monte Grappa in Varese

Travel tip:

Varese is a city in Lombardy, 55km north of Milan and close to Lake Maggiore. It is rich in castles, villas and gardens, many connected with the Borromeo family, who were from the area. Lake Varese is 8.5km long, set in low rolling hills just below Varese. Many visitors to the city are drawn to the Sacro Monte di Varese (the Sacred Hill of Varese), which features a picturesque walk passing 14 monuments and chapels, eventually reaching the monastery of Santa Maria del Monte.

More reading:

Giorgio de Chirico's scuola metafisica

The Futurist art of Carlo Carrà

Flaminio Bertoni - sculptor from Varese who turned his talents to car design

Also on this day:

1859: The birth of coffee maker Luigi Lavazza

1966: The birth of footballer Alessandro Costacurta

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Mina - pop star

Italy’s all-time top selling female artist

The pop singer Anna Maria Mazzini, better known simply as Mina, was born on this day in 1940 in the Lombardy city of Busto Arsizio.

Mina openly smoked cigarettes in what was
considered at the time to be a defiant gesture

Since her debut single in 1958, Mina has sold well in excess of 150 million records, which makes her the top-selling female performer in Italian music history. Only her fellow 60s star Adriano Celentano can boast larger figures.

The pair worked together on one of Italy’s biggest-selling albums of all-time in 1998. Mina Celentano sold an impressive 2.365 million copies. They revived the collaboration in 2016 with Tutte Le Migliori.

Mina also enjoys an iconic status in the history of female emancipation in Italy as a result of the sensational ban imposed on her by the state television station RAI in 1963 following her affair with a married actor, Corrado Pani, by whom she became pregnant.

Despite pressure from the Catholic Church, whose position as the guardians of Italy’s public morals was still very strong at the time, the broadcaster was forced by the weight of public opinion, as well as Mina’s unaffected record sales, to rescind the ban the following January.

Mina, who had already cultivated a racy image by dressing in mini-skirts, dying her hair blonde and wearing heavy eye make-up, responded by singing songs with controversial lyrics, some glorifying smoking, which was still associated with women of loose morals in Italian society, and the pleasures of sex.

Mina wore short dresses, heavy eye make-up and
dyed her hair blonde during the 1960s

Mina, who lives in Switzerland with her husband, the cardiologist Eugenio Quaini, has not appeared on stage since 1978 but continues to make records. Her latest album, Maeba, has only just been released.

Born into a working-class background in Busto Arsizio, she grew up in Cremona, where she cultivated a taste in American rock and roll and jazz music. She began to attend clubs in Milan in her teens and began her performing career under the name Baby Gate - somewhat ironic given she was 5ft 10ins (1.78m) tall - with a backing group called Happy Boys.

That partnership broke up when her parents refused to let her skip college, where she was studying accountancy, to go on tour in Turkey, despite one reviewer describing her debut on stage in Milan as “the birth of a star”.

Baby Gate gave way to Mina as a stage name, although her high-energy rock and roll style continued. Her loud vocals earned her the unflattering nickname Queen of the Screamers, while a journalist friend in Cremona called her the Tiger of Cremona.

She found fame rapidly, not just for her sensual stage performances and striking good looks but for the range of her voice. She hit the top of the Italian singles charts for the first time in September 1959 with Tintarella di Luna (Moon Tan) and would return regularly. So far she has had 79 albums and 71 singles in the Italian charts, including 16 number one albums and eight number one singles.

Largely she is remembered for melodramatic songs of anguished love stories, although her range and versatility enabled her to achieve success in different genres as the mood took her.  She won particular acclaim for her collaborations with the writers Bruno Canfora (Brava, 1965) and Ennio Morricone (Se telefonando, 1966), both of whom were asked to produce music that would showcase her range.

Mina at the start of her career in 1959

Mina encountered tragedy more than once in her private life, losing both her brother Alfredo and her first husband, the journalist Virgilio Crocco, in car crashes.

She moved to Lugano in Switzerland with her father in 1966 and has lived there since, although the city is less than half an hour’s drive from the Italian border.

After Crocco’s death, Mina was romantically linked with Walter Chiara, who was her co-host with Raffaella Carrà on the TV show Canzonissima, and had relationships with the up-and-coming actor Gian-Maria Volontè and the composer Augusto Martelli.  She met Quaini in 1981 and they were together 25 years before they married in 2006.

Mina decided to end her career as a public performer in the 1970s, for reasons that have never been explained, although it has been speculated that she simply tired of the spotlight.  She announced her decision at the end of what would be her final TV appearance in 1974 and gave her last concert at the Bussola nightclub in Marina di Pietrasanta in Tuscany, where she had first gone on stage in 1958 during a family summer holiday.

Nonetheless, her recording career has continued unabated, with her albums now produced by her son, Massimiliano Pani. She also has a daughter, Benedetta Mazzini Crocco, who is an actress and television presenter.

Piazza San Giovanni in Busto Arsizio, Lombardy

Travel tip:

Busto Arsizio is a city of some 82,000 inhabitants which lies along the Olona River about 34km (21 miles) northwest of Milan and 30km (19 miles) south of Varese. Its most notable monument is the Renaissance-style church of Santa Maria di Piazza, built between 1515 and 1523 to a design by Donato Bramante, who died before seeing the project completed. The city grew considerably in the 20th century to become an important textile centre.

Hotels in Busto Arsizio by Booking.com

The wide expanse of beach at Marina di Pietrasanta

Travel tip:

Part of Tuscany's Versilia coastline, Marina di Pietrasanta is a resort between Viareggio and Pisa that boasts some of the area's best beaches, stretching for five kilometres along the coast. Pietrasanta itself is a town that has been an important centre for marble extraction for hundreds of years. Look out for the Bozzetti Museum, which is dedicated to marble sculptures.

More reading:

Sixty years on stage: the extraordinary career of Adriano Celentano

Gigliola Cinquetti - Italy's first Eurovision winner

The educated Venetian girl who reinvented herself as pop star Patty Pravo

Also on this day:

1541: The birth of Francesco I, the Grand Duke of Tuscany suspected of poisoning





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Dino Meneghin – basketball player

Italy’s biggest star won 32 trophies and Olympic medal

Dino Meneghin in 1980, the year his Olympic
silver medal followed a domestic treble

Dino Meneghin, universally recognised as the greatest Italian player in basketball history, was born on this day in 1950 in Alano di Piave, a village in the Veneto.

The first Italian and only the second European player to be drafted by a National Basketball Association team when he was picked by the Atlanta Hawks in 1970, Meneghin enjoyed a professional career spanning 28 years.

He did not retire until he was 44 years old and had played in a professional match against his own son, Andrea, having won 32 trophies including 12 Italian national championships and seven EuroLeague titles.

Meneghin also participated in four OIympic basketball tournaments, winning a silver medal in the 1980 Games in Moscow. His international career amounted to 271 appearances for Italy, in which he scored 2,847 points.

Brought up in Varese in Lombardy, Meneghin was always exceptionally tall, growing to a height of 6ft 9ins (2.06m), and was earmarked for an athletic career.  He and his brother Renzo would train together, Renzo as a middle-distance runner, Dino as a shot-putter and discus thrower.

It just happened that in 1963 his school entered a basketball tournament and his PE teacher, looking at who might be a candidate for the school team, naturally wanted to see whether Dino had the skills to go with his height.

Meneghin father and son: on court in
1990 with son Andrea (left)

He asked Dino to perform a series of runs and movements and was sufficiently encouraged to ask him to return the following day with some basketball shoes.  Many years later, in his autobiography, Meneghin revealed that when he asked his mother if he could have some basketball shoes she confessed she had not even heard of basketball, let alone knew where to buy the requisite footwear.

Nonetheless, he played in the tournament, impressing his teacher so much he was recommended for a trial with Pallacanestro Varese, better known as Ignis Varese after the electrical appliance firm that were its sponsors, and one of the leading clubs in the Italian Basketball League.

Three years later, at the age of 16 years and 11 months, he made his professional debut, beginning what would be a career of extraordinary success.

Playing in the key position of center, which normally goes to the tallest player on the team, Meneghin helped Varese win seven Italian championships between 1969 and 1977, plus four Italian Cups, five European (EuroLeague) Cups, two Cup-Winners’ Cups and two Intercontinental Cups.

After Varese had won the treble of domestic league and cup and the European crown in 1970, Meneghin was entered for the NBA draft, the first Italian to be given that honour.  In the event, though selected by Atlanta, he did not take up the chance to play as it would have meant turning his back on his international career.

Had that happened his participation in the Munich, Atlanta, Moscow and Los Angeles Olympics would not have taken place, nor would he have supplemented his silver medal in Moscow, in which Italy were beaten by Yugoslavia in the final in the absence of the USA, with bronze medals at the European championships in 1971 and 1975 and gold at the 1983 finals in France.

Meneghin in retirement as president of
the Italian Basketball Federation

Meneghin spent 14 years with Varese before joining Olimpia Milano in 1980 and continuing his success, winning five more Italian league titles, two Italian Cups, two EuroLeague titles and another Intercontinental Cup.

After 10 years in Milan, he moved again in 1990 to Stefanel Trieste, where in November 1990 he enjoyed the emotional experience of playing against his son, Andrea, who had started out in the same way as his father, making his debut for Varese at the age of 16.

Andrea was to go on to win a first Italian title with Varese in 1999, in the same year winning a European championship gold medal for Italy in a team of which his father was sitting on the bench as manager.

Since retiring, Dino has been inducted to the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame – only the second Italian to be granted the accolade, the most prestigious in the sport, after Cesare Rubini, the former Milano player and coach.

He has also served as president of the Italian Basketball Federation, made an honorary citizen of Varese and handed the keys to Alano di Piave.

In 2015, he was named on a list of 100 Italian sportsmen and women to be commemorated in a new Walk of Fame of Italian Sport, connecting the Avenue of the Olympics with the Olympic Stadium at the Foro Italico in Rome.

Nowadays, Meneghin lives in Alice Bel Colle, a pretty village in rolling countryside in the province of Alessandria in Piedmont, about 100km (62 miles) southeast of Turin and 80km (50 miles) northwest of the Ligurian capital of Genoa.

Varese's town hall is the Palazzo Estense, set in several
acres of beautiful gardens

Travel tip:

The city of Varese, in an area in the foothills of the Alps that owes its terrain to the activities of ancient glaciers that created 10 lakes in the immediate vicinity, including Lago di Varese, which this elegant provincial capital overlooks.  Most visitors to the city arrive there because of the Sacro Monte di Varese (the Sacred Hill of Varese), which features a picturesque walk passing 14 monuments and chapels, eventually reaching the monastery of Santa Maria del Monte.  But the town itself and the handsome villas and palaces in the centre and the surrounding countryside are interesting in their own right, reflecting the prosperity of the area. The grand Palazzo Estense is one, now the city's Municipio - the town hall.

The village of Alano di Piave in Veneto, viewed from
the foothills of Monte Grappa

Travel tip:

Meneghin’s home village of Alano di Piave is situated in a beautiful valley in the northern area of Veneto, at the foot of Monte Grappa, in an area popular with climbers and walkers. Some 35km (22 miles) northeast of Bassano del Grappa and a similar distance southwest of Belluno, overlooking the fast-flowing Piave river, it is close to Valdobbiadene, the wine-growing area in the province of Treviso most famous for producing the finest Prosecco.

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Umberto Bossi - politician

Fiery leader of separatist Lega Nord

Umberto Bossi founded Lega Nord in 1991

Controversial politician Umberto Bossi was born on this day in 1941 in the town of Cassano Magnago in Lombardy.

Until 2012, Bossi was leader of Lega Nord (Northern League), a political party whose goal was to achieve autonomy for northern Italy and establish a new independent state, to be called Padania.

With his distinctive, gravelly voice and penchant for fiery, sometimes provocative rhetoric, Bossi won a place in the Senate in 1987 representing his original party, Lega Lombarda. He was dismissed as an eccentric by some in the political mainstream but under his charismatic leadership Lega Nord became a force almost overnight.

Launched as Alleanza Nord in 1989, bringing together a number of regional parties including Bossi’s own Lega Lombarda, it was renamed Lega Nord in 1991 and fought the 1992 general election with stunning results.

With an impressive 8.7% of the vote, Lega Nord went into the new parliament with 56 deputies and 26 senators, making it the fourth largest party in Italy.

By 1996 that share had risen to 10% and Bossi had become a major figure in Italian politics.

Three times he was Silvio Berlusconi’s key ally, helping the former prime minister win power in 1994, 2001 and 2008 - and lose it in the first instance, when his withdrawal of support for Berlusconi’s centre-right Forza Italia-led coalition brought about the government's collapse.

Bossi had a reputation for provocative speeches

Despite that, Bossi served in the next two Berlusconi governments as a minister. In time, he accepted that a secession from Italy was an unrealistic ambition, but he continued to press for greater autonomy for the northern regions and extracted promises from Berlusconi in return for his support.

He was Minister for Institutional Reforms and Devolution from 2001 to 2004 and Minister of Federal Reforms from 2008 to 2011.

Bossi may well have become an even bigger figure on the Italian political stage had he not suffered a serious stroke in 2004, a setback from which he ultimately recovered but which cost him considerable momentum.  Shortly before the illness, he had become a member of the European Parliament.

He resigned as general secretary in 2012, having become embroiled in a financial scandal, with accusations levelled at him by prosecutors that he misappropriated funds directed to Lega Nord through the Italian tax system.

Bossi had become interested in politics while at the University of Pavia, where he studied medicine, through a meeting with Bruno Salvadori, leader of the centre-left Valdostan Union party.  During this time he also had a brief flirtation with a music career, performing as a singer-songwriter under the name of Donato.

Advancing years and the effects of a stroke
did not stop Bossi campaigning

His own political motivations were quite narrow, driven by the perception that the rich north is burdened with subsidising the poorer south.  In 1982, the autonomist Lega Lombarda was born.  Lega Nord emerged from alliances made with similar movements in Veneto and Piedmont, driven by calls to break away from Rome and build a new country called Padania.

Most of Bossi’s firebrand speeches at the time depicted the south of Italy and the capital, Rome – which he dubbed ‘Roma ladrona’ or ‘thieving Rome’ – as a black hole of corruption and waste, relentlessly eating up the taxes of hard-working, decent northerners. He and his fellow Lega Nord politicians brazenly pandered to the pockets of old-fashioned contempt for southerners that still existed in the north of the country.

Apart from southerners, targets for Bossi’s ire included the European Union, which he once described as a "the Soviet Union of the West”, while his outspoken comments on homosexuality and immigration provoked at times fierce reactions.

Married with four children, Bossi voluntarily stepped down as leader during the 2012 investigation, claiming he was doing so “for the good of the party”.  He was immediately made Lega Nord’s honorary president.

Lega Nord supporters gathered in Venice as Bossi made his
1996 'declaration of independence' from a floating pontoon

Travel tip:

Despite the sense of theatre attached to as Umberto Bossi’s symbolic ‘declaration of independence’ for Padania at a rally of green-shirted supporters in Venice in 1996, the ‘country’ of Padania has never existed as anything other than a geographical or socio-economic term to describe the area that encompasses Val Padana – the Po Valley.  There is some evidence also that Padanian was a term once used to group languages spoken by population groups north of a line linking La Spezia in Liguria with Rimini on the Adriatic coast.  Bossi’s Lega Nord tended to define Padania as a broad area of northern Italy consisting of Veneto, Emilia-Romagna, Lombardy, Piedmont and Liguria.

A view over the rooftops of Cassano Magnago

Travel tip:

Bossi’s home town of Cassano Magnago is situated about 20km (12 miles) south of Varese in Lombardy, adjoining the city of Gallarate and close to the Valle del Ticino national park.  The area is said to have been populated since around 500BC and there is evidence that it held a strategic position and was the scene of a battle during the Roman conquest of Milan in 225BC. Apart from being Bossi’s birthplace, it is the home of the 18^th century sculptor Giovanni Battista Maino and the two-times Giro d’Italia winner Ivan Basso.

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Ottavio Missoni - fashion designer

Former prisoner of war was also an Olympic hurdler

The fashion designer Ottavio Missoni with his wife Rosita on
the lawn of their mansion in Sumirago in 1975

The fashion designer Ottavio Missoni died on this day in 2013 at the age of 92 following an extraordinary life.

He passed away at his home in Sumirago, 55km (34 miles) north-west of Milan, having requested his release from hospital in order to spend his last days with his family.

Missoni was the co-founder of the Italian fashion brand Missoni, which he set up in 1953 with his wife, Rosita. The company became known around the world for its brightly coloured geometric knits and zigzag patterns and were among the pioneers of Italian ready-to-wear clothing lines.

Earlier, he had been an infantryman during the Second World War, fighting at the Battle of El Alamein in 1942. He was captured by the 7^th Armoured Division of the British Army, popularly known as the Desert Rats, and spent the remainder of the war in an English prisoner-of-war camp in Egypt.

After the war, he pursued his passion for competitive athletics, becoming good enough to be selected in the Italian team for the 1948 Olympics in London, where he reached the final of the 400m hurdles event.

Missoni was born in Dubrovnik, on the Dalmatian coast, in 1921. His mother was a countess, his father, Vittorio, a Friulian sea captain who had moved to Dalmatia while it was under Austrian rule. He grew up in Zadar, now part of Croatia but then called Zara and part of Italian territory, before going to college in Trieste and Milan.

The Missoni logo

He had participated in athletics events before the war. A member of the Italian national team at 16, he took part in an international meeting in Milan in 1937 in which he won the 400m in a time of 48.8 second, which remains the fastest for his age in Italian track history. In 1939, over the same distance, he won a gold medal at the International University Games in Vienna.

Sport provided his entry into the fashion business. Back home after the war, Missoni and his fellow athlete Giorgio Oberweger opened a business in Trieste making wool tracksuits, which they called Venjulia suits.

The tracksuits featured zippered legs, which Missoni has been credited with inventing. The Venjulia suits recognised the need of athletes for functional, warm garments enabling freedom of movement. In fact, they were worn by the Italian Olympic team in 1948.

It was while in London that he met 16-year-old Rosita Jelmini, an English student from Golasecca, Italy, who watched him compete.  They married in 1953, and their first son, Vittorio, was born in 1954. Luca (1956) and Angela (1958) followed.

Rosita’s family had a textiles business, making shawls, and together she and Ottavio set up a machine-knitwear workshop in Gallarate, not far from Sumirago and the town in which Rosita grew up. 

Soon they were supplying designs to the Biki boutique in Milan and to La Rinascente, the department store, where the first Missoni-labelled garments, a line of colourful vertically striped shirt-dresses, were displayed in the window in 1958. 

Ottavio Missoni in 2010

They held their first catwalk show in 1966, and the following year, presented a show at the Palazzo Pitti in Florence, which landed them in controversy after the show’s lighting had the effect of turning the models’ clothing see-through, a misfortune made worse by the fact that most of the models went without underwear so as not to spoil the line of the clothes they were showing off. The show was likened to a bawdy cabaret and the Missonis were not invited back.

However, the publicity the scandal attracted helped the Missonis. Their next presentation, in Milan, drew much press attention and, as Milan grew as a fashion capital, the Missonis went on to feature in many leading fashion magazines. 

With a new factory in Sumirago, in a beautiful country setting in the shadow of Monte Rosa, they opened their first in-store boutique at Bloomingdale's in New York in 1970. Their first directly-owned boutique in Milan followed in 1976. 

The company enjoyed such heights of prestige that in 1983 they were invited to design the stage costumes for a performance of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor at Teatro alla Scala in Milan, starring Luciano Pavarotti, and in 1990 some of the costumes for the opening ceremony for the football World Cup.

In 1997, Ottavio and Rosita retired, entrusted the future of the business in their children, appointing Vittorio as marketing director and Angela as creative director, with Luca taking a technical role. The company expanded into furniture and car interiors and even set up a chain of boutique hotels.

Sadly, tragedy struck the family shortly before Ottavio died when Vittorio was killed, along with his wife, Maurizia, when a small plane in which they were travelling crashed off the coast of Venezuela.

Travel tip:

As the crow flies, the city of Zadar in Croatia is 206km (128 miles) south-east of Trieste along the Dalmatian coast. At the time of Missoni’s birth it was called Zara, and was on Italian territory as part of the settlement of the Treaty of Rapallo, which rewarded Italy’s participation on the side of the Triple Entente (France, Russia and the United Kingdom) in defeating Germany in the First World War. With considerable Venetian influence, having for many years between the 13^th and 18^th centuries been part of the Republic of Venice, it is a city with a strong Italian flavour, retaining its beauty despite being bombed heavily during the Second World War.

Travel tip:

Sumirago, where Missoni made his home, is 15km (9 miles) south of Varese, a pleasant town a short distance from Lake Maggiore and overlooking its own picturesque lake. Well known as the location of the Sacro Monte di Varese (the Sacred Hill of Varese), which is scaled along a 2.5km path that passes 14 monuments built in the early part of the 17^th century, it is also home of the imposing Palazzo Estense and Villa Recalcati. Varese also has a cathedral, the Basilica di San Vittore, who can be found in an elegant square in the historic centre.

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Flaminio Bertoni - sculptor and car designer

Visionary ideas turned Citroën into style icon

Flaminio Bertoni in his workshop

The sculptor and automobile designer Flaminio Bertoni, the creative genius behind the groundbreaking Citroën cars of the 1930s, 40s and 50s, was born on this day in 1903 in what is now the Masnago district of Varese.

Bertoni, who lived in or near Paris from 1931 until his death in 1964, designed bodies for the stylish Traction Avant luxury executive car and the enduring workhorse 'Deux Chevaux' - the 2CV - which became almost a symbol of France.

Yes both of these were eclipsed, some would say, by the brilliance of Bertoni's aerodynamic, futuristic Citroën DS - also known as 'the Goddess' - which was named the most beautiful car of all time by the magazine Classic and Sports Car and was described by the Chicago Institute of Design soon after its launch as among the '100 most beautiful things in the world'.

Bertoni was fêted in France, where he was made a Knight of Arts and Letters by the government of Charles de Gaulle in 1961 but it was not until almost 40 years after his death that his achievements were given recognition in his home country, where his son, Leonardo, set up a museum in Varese to celebrate his work.

Even as a small child, Bertoni's ambitions were clear. He immersed himself in books about his idols, Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, from the age of six.

Bertoni's Citroën DS was named 'the most beautiful car
of all time' by the magazine, Classic and Sports Car

Although he would embrace car design with passion, his involvement with the nascent automobile industry came about by accident.  Having graduated from technical college in Varese, he was forced by the death of his father to look for a job rather than continue his formal education further.

It just so happened that the first offer of work came from a small car manufacturer in Varese, Carrozzeria Macchi, where he was taken on as a joiner's apprentice.  The company soon realised where his true talent lay, however, and within only a few years he was their head draftsman.

His first visit to France came in 1925, when he was invited to Paris following a visit to the Varese factory by some French engineers.  Bertoni met André Citroën and was impressed by his energy and forward thinking, yet at that stage wished to make his career in Italy.

Within six years, however, he had decided to make his home in Paris.  Having fallen out with Carrozzeria Macchi because his ideas were seen as too advanced, and when his mother made it clear she disapproved of his girlfriend, Giovanna Barcella, the lure of a new life in the sophisticated French capital, which was at the forefront of automotive design at the time, became too much to resist.

Bertoni's iconic 2CV remained in production for 42
years, with sales topping five million

When he and Giovanna stepped off the train at Gard de Lyon in October 1931 he had no job and she was already three months' pregnant but everything fell into place the following year. Two months after the birth of his son, whom he would name Leonardo in honour of Da Vinci, he was taken on by Citroën.

His first design triumph came in 1934 with the Traction Avant - literally 'front wheel drive' - which he presented to the company not as a design on paper but a fully scaled sculpture in plasticine.  The car had a lightweight all-metal body and a substantially bigger passenger compartment than was typical. It seemed certain to be a success but its development had been so expensive that the company was bankrupted soon after its launch.

Fortunately, the tyre company Michelin not only came to the rescue of the company but were keen to see the Traction Avant project realised.  Eventually, 750,000 were sold.

The next few years were difficult for Bertoni.  In 1936, dismayed at how little time her husband spent at home - while not working, he was exhibiting his sculptures and drawings and enjoying the Paris nightlife - Giovanna returned to Italy, taking Leonardo with her.  After the outbreak of the Second World War, he was twice interned as an alien, although on each occasion he was quickly released.  He also spent a year in hospital after a serious motorcycle accident, although he put the time to good use by studying for an architecture degree.

Once recovered, he took Citroën's plans for what was originally named the TPV - a 'tres petite voiture' to rival the German 'people's car', the Volkswagen - and developed the distinctive bodywork lines that would instantly set apart the fabled 2CV.  Conceived at first as a purely functional vehicle aimed at agricultural workers, it would in time become a French icon.  Launched in 1948, it remained in production for 42 years, selling more than five million.

The 1930s luxury saloon the Traction Avant was
Bertoni's first major success designing for Citroën

By now married for the second time, to the dancer Lucienne Marodon, he followed the 2CV with a car aimed at a much different market as France recovered from war keen to reconnect with its opulent past.  The Citroën DS - the letters were a play on the French word 'Déesse', meaning Goddess - was unveiled at the Paris Motor Show in 1955, where visitors were wowed not only by the beautiful sculpted curves of the car's superstructure but by its hydro-pneumatic suspension, front power disc brakes and power steering. It was hailed as 'a magic carpet ride' and 12,000 orders were placed on the opening day.

Bertoni created one more fine car, the Ami 6, and also managed to put his architectural skills into practice in the United States, where a system for building houses designed by Bertoni enabled 1,000 homes to go up in 100 days at a project in St Louis, Missouri.

He frequently exhibited and won prizes for his drawings and sculptures both in Italy and France.  The imposing Monument to the Fallen in Varese's Piazza della Repubblica was in part sculpted by Bertoni, working for Enrico Butti.

Bertoni, who always walked with a stick after his motorcycle accident, which left him with one leg shorter than the other, died in Paris in 1964 after suffering a stroke.  His second son, Serge, from his marriage to Lucienne Maradon, passed away a few years later, the victim of a road accident.

Travel tip:

Leonardo Bertoni, who died in 2015 at the age of 82, campaigned for the last 15 years of his life to see that his father's memory was preserved in his native country, setting up a museum in Varese to celebrate his work.  The museum has since closed but the exhibits are now on display at the Museum of Transport at Ranco, about 20km west of Varese on Lake Maggiore.

The Estensi Palace and Gardens in Varese

Travel tip:

Varese is a pleasant city in northern Lombardy overlooking the lake of the same name, situated about 20 minutes from Milan Malpensa airport and about 55km (34 miles) from the city of Milan.  The city is small enough to get around on foot, with attractions such as the central Piazza Monte Grappa, the Basilica San Vittore and the spectacular Estensi Palace and Gardens within a short distance of one another.

More reading:

Battista 'Pinin' Farina - Ferrari's design mastermind

Vittorio Jano - engineer who created Ferrari's classic V-8 Dino engine

How industrialist Enrico Piaggio gave Italy the Vespa motor scooter

Also on this day:

967: Death of San Pietro Orseolo, doge of Venice

(Picture credits: Citroën DS by Alexandre Prévot; 2CV by Croquant; Traction Avant by Abrimaal; Estensi Palace by Docfra; all via Wikimedia Commons)

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