Showing posts with label Verona. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Verona. Show all posts

4 July 2024

Giambettino Cignaroli - painter

Artist celebrated in home city of Verona 

A self-portrait painted by Cignaroli in 1758 ( Kunsthistorisches, Vienna)
A self-portrait painted by Cignaroli in
1758 ( Kunsthistorisches, Vienna)
The painter and writer Giambettino Cignaroli was born on this day in 1706 in Verona, where he spent much of his career and became the city’s leading painter in the Rococo era. 

Primarily a painter of religious scenes, he became known also for spiritual images and celebratory historical painting.

His most famous works include Death of Cato and Death of Socrates, two canvases of Greco-Roman episodes which he painted for the Austrian governor of Lombardy, Count Karl von Firmian; his Virgin and Child With Saints Jerome and Alexander, for the Chiesa di San Giovanni XXIII in Bergamo; and the Death of Rachel for the Scuola Grande della Carità, now part of the Galleria dell 'Accademia in Venice.

He was thought to have painted a portrait of the composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart when he visited Verona at the age of 13, although some experts attribute this work to Cignaroli’s nephew, Saverio Dalla Rosa. 

Although his workshop was in his home city, Cignaroli travelled around northern Italy in the 1730s and ‘40s, when he often worked in Venice, Chioggia, Bergamo and Brescia. He was also active in cities such as Milan, Parma, Turin, Bologna and Ferrara. 

Other notable works can be found in the Chiesa di San Lorenzo in Brescia, the basilica of San Giovanni Battista in Lonato del Garda, and the Chiesa di San Marco in Bergamo.

Cignaroli's Death of Socrates, which is now on display in the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest
Cignaroli's Death of Socrates, which is now on
display in the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest
Cignaroli was born into an artistic family. His half-brothers included a sculptor, Diomiro, and painters Gian Domenico and Giuseppe. Two of his father’s cousins, Pietro and Martino, were also painters, as was his uncle, Leonardo Seniore.

After studying rhetoric at a Jesuit school, he became interested in painting himself. He became a pupil of Sante Prunati before attending the painting school of Antonio Balestra. 

He then spent time in Venice, where he studied the works of masters such as Titian, Paolo Veronese and Palma il Vecchio before returning to Verona to set up his own workshop in 1728, which would become his permanent base. 

By mid-century, his fame had spread beyond Italy’s borders, and his works were sought after by monarchs and elites from Spain, Northern Europe, and Russia. Although he never left Italy, turning down invitations to work at the royal courts in Madrid and Vienna, his clients included the Elector of Saxony, the King of Poland and the Tsarina of Russia.

An altarpiece by Cignaroli in the Church of San Lorenzo in Brescia
An altarpiece by Cignaroli in the
Church of San Lorenzo in Brescia
A  monumental altarpiece by Cignaroli in the Prado Museum in Madrid, depicting the Madonna and Child with Saints Lucia, Lorenzo, Anthony of Padua, Barbara and the guardian angel, was commissioned in 1759 by the Duke and Duchess of Parma on behalf of Elisabetta Farnese, who was Queen of Spain by marriage to King Philip V. 

Cignaroli helped establish Verona’s art academy - now known as the Accademia Cignaroli di Pittura e Scultura - in 1766.  

As a writer, Cignaroli wrote poetry and history, including a series of biographies of Veronese painters.

He died in December, 1770 and was buried in Verona in the church of Saints Siro and Libera, a short distance from the Accademia Cignaroli. He never married and there was no record of any children.

In November 2019, the portrait of the young Mozart some experts attribute to him was sold at auction at Christie's in Paris for more than €4 million. 

The courtyard of the Cignaroli Accademia di Belli Arti di Verona, established during the painter's life
The courtyard of the Cignaroli Accademia di Belli
Arti di Verona, established during the painter's life
Travel tip:

The Cignaroli Academy is one of the oldest academies of fine arts in the world and one of the five historical Italian Academies.  Also known as the Accademia di Belle Arti di Verona, it was founded in 1764 by Giambettino Cignaroli and secured lasting recognition for the Verona school of painting. The institution faced challenges during periods of social and political upheaval but survived and prospered due to figures such as Saverio Dalla Rosa, Cignaroli’s nephew, who worked to preserve Verona’s artistic heritage and opened part of the academy as a public gallery. Today, the Accademia di Belle Arti di Verona maintains its prestigious standing, offering art courses as well as exhibitions open to the public. Situated in Via San Carlo, near Ponte Pietra, it is open on Monday to Friday from 9am until noon, and from 3-7pm.

The Church of Saints Siro and Libera was built within the remains of Verona's Teatro Romano
The Church of Saints Siro and Libera was built
within the remains of Verona's Teatro Romano
Travel tip:

The Church of Saints Siro and Libera, where Cignaroli was buried, can be found in the Veronetta district of Verona, within the archaeological site which includes the ruins of the Teatro Romano, an open-air theatre built in the 1st century BC at the foot of Colle San Pietro, on the left bank of the Adige, which is one of the best preserved Roman theatres in northern Italy.  According to historical accounts, the church owes its unusual location, directly overlooking what would have been the theatre’s stage, to the first Christian mass in the city of Verona being celebrated in an archway of the theatre. It was above this archway that in 913 Giovanni, Bishop of Cremona, built the church. The church was modified and expanded in the early 17th century to include the gabled, west-facing façade, accessed via a staircase divided into two branches.

Also on this day:

1742: The death of mathematician Luigi Guido Grandi

1914: The birth of car designer Giuseppe ‘Nuccio’ Bertone

1927: The birth of actress Gina Lollobrigida


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19 April 2023

Lilli Gruber - groundbreaking TV journalist

Writer and broadcaster was first female to host prime time news bulletin

Lilli Gruber today conducts the current affairs talk show Otto e Mezzo on Italy's La7 channel
Lilli Gruber today conducts the current affairs
talk show Otto e Mezzo on Italy's La7 channel
The journalist Lilli Gruber, who in 1987 became the first woman to be appointed anchor of a prime time news show on Italian public television, was born on this day in 1957 in Bolzano.

In a distinguished career, as well as being the face of major news programmes for the national broadcaster Rai, Gruber has reported on many major international stories as a foreign correspondent, presented shows on German television, served as a Member of the European Parliament for five years, and written many books.

Since leaving politics in 2008, she has been the host of the long-running political talk show, Otto e Mezzo, on the Rome-based independent TV channel La7.

Nicknamed La Rossa both for her red hair and her political views, Gruber was born Dietlinde Gruber into a German-speaking family in Bolzano, the provincial capital of South Tyrol in the Trentino-Alto Adige region of northeast Italy, which borders Austria and Switzerland.

It was her father, Alfred, an entrepreneur, who gave her the pet name Lilli, which stayed with her into adulthood.

Educated partly in Verona, where her father built up a business making machinery for the construction industry, and in the town of Egna, near Bolzano, where she attended a language school, Gruber graduated in foreign languages and literature from the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, before embarking on a journalistic career in her home region.

Alongside reporting for the regional newspapers L’Adige and Alto Adige, she gained some television experience with the local channel, Telebolzano, before landing a job on Rai Südtirol, also known as Sender Bozen, a German language channel for Trentino-Alto Adige, where despite being part of Italy, around a third of the population speak German.

Gruber made Italian TV history in 1987 as the first female journalist to host a prime time news show
Gruber made Italian TV history in 1987 as the first
female journalist to host a prime time news show
From there, she moved to the Bolzano office of TGR, the regional news arm of Rai, and in 1984 was recruited as a reporter for TG2, which was responsible for news programming on Rai Due.

Her career flourished under the guidance of Antonio Ghirelli, TG2’s editor and a major figure in Italian journalism. As a foreign correspondent, Gruber reported in 1989 on the dismantling of the Berlin Wall, an experience that would become the subject of her first book, Quei giorni a Berlin - Those Days in Berlin - which was published in 1990.

In the meantime, Ghirelli had enabled her to make history by handing her the job of anchoring TG2’s main evening news programme, which aired at 7.45pm each weekday evening. The move broke new ground, Gruber’s professionalism meaning that what had been a glass ceiling on the career progression of women in Italian TV news coverage was shattered.

Her career soon continued on its steep ascent with a move to Rai’s flagship channel, Rai Uno, where she again combined foreign assignments with hosting. She became anchor for TG1’s main eight o’clock evening news programme while also reporting on the conflicts in Yugoslavia and Iraq and the 2001 terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon in the United States.

It was while in Baghdad to report on the second Iraq war that she met Jacques Charmelot, a French journalist she would later marry.

Gruber was elected an MEP in the 2004 elections
Gruber was elected an MEP
in the 2004 elections
Gruber’s decision to pursue a career in politics was rooted in her opposition to the restrictions on freedom of information introduced by prime minister Silvio Berlusconi after his return to power in 2001.  By curbing their rights of access to information, Berlusconi made it more difficult for journalists to call out corruption and maladministration in government departments.

Gruber allied herself to the Uniti nell’Ulivo coalition, a centre-left alliance, and was elected as an MEP for central Italy in the July elections of 2004. She quickly became an effective politician, joining the parliamentary group of the European Socialist Party, becoming president of the delegation for relations with the Gulf States, a member of Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs and of the delegation for relations with Iran. She also became a member of the EU’s Ethics Commission.

Yet she missed journalism and when an offer was made by the ambitious management of La7, which has become Italy’s largest TV company outside the auspices of Rai or Berlusconi’s Mediaset, to front their evening political debate, Otto e Mezzo, she felt she could not turn it down.

A versatile presenter fluent in four languages - Italian, German, French and English - she has also worked for a number of German TV companies and conducted an exclusive interview with the Italian actress, Sophia Loren, for the American network, CBS.

Famed for her dogged questioning in interviews with political figures, Gruber also became known as a stylish dresser, often presenting the news in tailored Armani suits. She became friends with Giorgio Armani, the designer who founded the brand in 1975 and who designed the honey-coloured gown she wore at her wedding to Charmelot in Montagna, a village near Bolzano, in 2000.

Gruber’s books have drawn on her experiences in journalism but also her passionate interest in women’s rights, particularly the rights of women in Islamic societies. Her book I miei giorni a Baghdad - My Days in Baghdad - sold more than 100,000 copies.

More recently, she has written a trilogy of novels about the history of her family and of South Tyrol between the 19th and 20th centuries, entitled Eredità (Inheritance), Inganno (Deceit) and Tempesta (Storm). 

The city of Bolzano sits in a wide valley in the
Alpine region of Trentino-Alto Adige (Südtirol)
Travel tip:

Gruber’s home city of Bolzano is the capital of the South Tyrol region of what is now northern Italy, also known as Alto Adige. Occupying a valley flanked by hills covered in lush vineyards, it has a population of 108,000, swelling to 250,000 with all the surrounding communities. One of the largest urban areas in the Alpine region, it has a medieval city centre famous for its wooden market stalls, selling among other things Alpine cheeses, hams and bread. Places of interest include the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology, the imposing 13th-century Mareccio Castle, and the Duomo di Bolzano with its Romanesque and Gothic architecture. Three languages - Italian, German and a local language called Ladin - are spoken in the area, which consistently polls high among the Italian cities reckoned to have the best standard of living.  The nearest airport to Bolzano is at Verona, about 150km (93 miles) to the south and accessible in approximately an hour and a half by train, although some visitors arrive from Innsbruck in Austria, just over two hours by train in the opposite direction.

Verona is a beautiful city in northern Italy, flanking the Adige river
Verona is a beautiful city in northern Italy,
flanking the Adige river 
Travel tip:

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

Also on this day:

1588: The death of Renaissance painter Paolo Veronese

1768: The death of painter Canaletto, known for views of Venice

1937: The birth of chef and restaurateur Antonio Carluccio

1953: The birth of Olympic high jumper Sara Simeoni


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22 February 2021

Giovanni Zenatello - opera singer and director

Tenor star who turned Verona’s ancient Arena into major venue

Giovanni Zenatello sang all the major tenor roles in a 35-year career
Giovanni Zenatello sang all the major
tenor roles in a 35-year career
The early 20th century opera star Giovanni Zenatello, who was not only a highly accomplished performer on stages around the world but also the driving force behind the establishment of the Arena di Verona as a major venue, was born on this day in 1876 in Verona.

Zenatello spent a large part of his career in the United States but is remembered with enormous respect in Italy - and in particular in his home city - for having teamed up with impresario Ottone Rivato and others to put on a spectacular staging of Giuseppe Verdis Aida at the Arena in 1913, the first operatic production of the century to take place within the remains of the Roman amphitheatre and the forerunner of hundreds more.

The tenor was already an important figure in Italian opera for his interpretations of Verdi’s Otello and most of the other dramatic or heroic leading male roles in the popular works of the day.  He had also been the first to sing the role of Pinkerton in Giacomo Puccini’s Madama Butterfly.

Zenatello initially trained as a baritone and when he made his professional stage debut in Belluno in 1898, taking on the roles of Silvio in Ruggero Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci and Alfio in Pietro Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana, it was as a baritone. 

However, it is said he was never comfortable in the baritone range and when a chance came to take the tenor role of Canio in Pagliacci at the Real Teatro Mercadante in Naples the following year, stepping in at short notice when the tenor due to play the role was indisposed, Zenatello seized the opportunity and never looked back.

Zenatello was famous for his interpretation of Verdi's Otello
Zenatello was famous for his
interpretation of Verdi's Otello
By 1902, having gained experience and maturity, he made his debut at Teatro alla Scala, Italy’s premier opera house in Milan, where he would remain part of the company for the next five years, performing in most of the major tenor roles, making an impact in particular in Verdi’s Otello.

It was at La Scala in 1904 that Zenatello was part of Madama Butterfly’s infamous premiere, when a hostile audience, unimpressed with what the critics slammed as a rushed and under-rehearsed production, greeted the cast with boos and catcalls and forced Puccini to pull the opera after one night. 

It was relaunched some weeks later in Brescia. Rosina Storchio, who had been cast as Cio-Cio San in the original in Milan, did not reappear, but Zenatello gave the character of Pinkerton, a US naval officer, a successful second debut.  The controversy did no harm to Zenatello’s reputation, even if it left the composer feeling somewhat chastened. 

Zenatello made his debut at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in 1905 and at the Manhattan Opera House in New York in 1907. He was never part of the company at the New York Metropolitan but stepped in to sing the role of Radamès in Aida in 1909 when Enrico Caruso was undergoing a medical procedure in Milan. 

Based in Manhattan, where he shared his home with the Spanish mezzo-soprano Maria Gay, Zenatello was a member of the Boston Opera Company from 1909 to 1914 but often toured, in South America and Mexico as well as Europe.   He succeeded Francesco Tamagno, the original Otello, in being recognised as the greatest exponent of the Verdi role, which he performed more than 300 times.

Zenatello with the Spanish soprano
Maria Gay, with whom he shared his life
It was while he was back in Italy in 1913, visiting his home city, that Zenatello had the idea of marking the centenary of Verdi’s birth by staging a large opera show within the ruins of the Arena, which had occasionally been used for sporting events, musical and theatrical performances since the Renaissance but had never hosted a complete opera. He and Maria and two friends - composer Ferruccio Cusinati and impresario Ottone Rovato - thought that the grand spectacle of Aida would work perfectly within the imposing space of the amphitheatre and asked a Verona architect, Ettore Fagiuoli, to design the sets. 

The performance, in the heat of August, was a huge success and Zenatello and Gay returned in 1914, this time putting on Georges Bizet’s Carmen. It was the start of the Arena’s annual summer festival. 

Zenatello retired from performing in 1933 and devoted himself to teaching. His singing school in New York helped develop the careers of several future stars, among them the coloratura soprano Lily Pons, whom he discovered in Paris and trained up to perform at the Met, and his fellow Veronese tenor Nino Martini, who made his Met debut in 1933 in Rigoletto, opposite Lily Pons.

In 1947, in the role of artistic director of the summer season at the Arena,  Zenatello made another decision that would have a profound influence on the opera world, when he gave a young and relatively unknown soprano called Maria Callas the main part in Amilcare Ponchielli’s La Gioconda.

She had been recommended to Zenatello by Nicola Rossi-Lemeni, a bass who had been due to star with Callas in a Chicago production of Turandot that would have been the American-born soprano’s first major performance had the company not folded on the eve of the run. Zenatello watched her audition in New York and was quickly convinced, as was Tullio Serafin, the conductor in Verona, who would go on to play an integral role in Callas’s career.

Zenatello died in New York in 1949 at the age of 73.

The Arena di Verona held more than 30,000 spectators for events in Roman times
The Arena di Verona held more than 30,000
spectators for events in Roman times
Travel tip:

The Arena di Verona in Piazza Bra is a wonderful surviving example of a first-century Roman amphitheatre.  The arena was built in AD 30 on a site which was then beyond the city walls. It could host more than 30,000 spectators in ancient times, double the capacity permitted today.  Having fallen into disrepair following the collapse of the Roman empire, the outer of what were three rings of arches disappearing completely, the Arena was the scene of jousting events and other tournaments and games during the Renaissance, with some use for plays and musical concerts documented later.  Since Zenatello and his friends established it as the world’s premier open-air opera venue, it has become the stage for regular pop concerts as well, with many of the biggest names giving performances there. 

Find accommodation in Verona with Booking.com


A view of the interior of the Teatro Filarmonico in Verona, the city's principal opera theatre
A view of the interior of the Teatro Filarmonico
in Verona, the city's principal opera theatre
Travel tip:

Verona’s musical scene does not begin and end with summer operas in the Roman amphitheatre. Either side of the outdoor season, which runs from June to September, the Arena’s resident orchestra and chorus is based at the Teatro Filarmonico in Via dei Mutilati, just a few minutes’ walk away. Designed by Francesco Galli Bibiena, the ducal architect at Mantua, it was built between 1716 and 1732 and opened with a performance of La fida ninfa, an opera by Antonio Vivaldi. It had to be rebuilt after a fire in 1749 and after it was destroyed by enemy bombing during the Second World War. Patiently rebuilt so that its interior exactly resembled the original, it was not re-inaugurated until 1975, opening with Antonio Salieri’s Falstaff. Nowadays, it hosts ballet, opera and concert seasons. 

More reading:

The Italian impresario who transformed the New York Met

The Neapolitan who founded the San Francisco Opera

The music publisher who 'discovered' the great Puccini

Also on this day:

1905: The birth of industrialist and scooter manufacturer Enrico Piaggio

1914: The birth of Nobel Prize-winning physiologist Renato Dulbecco

1921: The birth of award-winning actress Giulietta Masina

1990: The death of Autogrill pioneer Mario Pavesi

(Picture credits: Arena di Verona by depetukhova from Pixabay; Teatro Filarmonico by Adert via Wikimedia Commons)




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8 February 2021

Giuseppe Torelli – violinist and composer

Brilliant musician could both perform and write beautiful music

Torelli is ranked alongside Arcangelo Corelli
as a developer of the Baroque concerto
Talented musician Giuseppe Torelli, who played the viola and violin and was a composer during the late Baroque era, died on this day in 1709 in Bologna in Emilia-Romagna.

He is remembered for contributing to the development of the instrumental concerto and for being the most prolific Baroque composer for trumpets and he is ranked with Arcangelo Corelli as a developer of the Baroque concerto and concerto grosso.

Torelli was born in Verona in 1658. He learnt to play the violin and studied composition with Giacomo Antonio Perti.

At the age of 26 it is known that he was a member of the Accademia Filarmonica as a violinist. Two years later he was employed as a viola player at the Basilica di San Petronio in Bologna. He stayed there for about ten years until the orchestra was disbanded because of financial constraints.

His first published works were ten sonatas for violin and basso continuo and 12 concerti da camera for two violins and basso continuo.

Around 1690 Torelli began writing his first trumpet works. It is considered unusual for a strings player to compose works for the trumpet but it is thought Torelli may have been inspired by the virtuoso trumpeter Giovanni Pellegrino Brandi, who occasionally performed with the San Petronio orchestra.

In 1687 it went on record that Torelli’s music was being played at the Sanctuary Maria della Steccata in Parma in Emilia Romagna by Giuseppe Corsi da Celano, a composer and teacher.

Francesco Antonio Pistocchi, with whom Torelli collaborated
Francesco Antonio Pistocchi, with
whom Torelli collaborated
By 1698, Torelli had become maestro di concerto at the court of Georg Friedrich II, Margrave of Brandenburg Ansbach. He conducted the orchestra for Le pazzie d’amore e dell’interesse, an idea drammatica composed by the maestro di cappella, his friend Francesco Antonio Pistocchi, the composer and castrato singer 

After 1701, Torelli was known to be back in Bologna, where he is listed as a violinist in the newly reformed cappella musicale at San Petronio, directed by his former composition teacher, Perti.

Torelli and Pistocchi appeared in a number of concerts together in the early years of the 18th century. At around this time Torelli composed 12 concerti grossi con una pastorale, Op 8, which features one of his most popular pieces, the Christmas Eve concerto No 6.

Torelli died, aged 50, on 8 February 1709 in Bologna. His manuscripts were conserved in the San Petronio archives. He had composed many sonatas, concertos and symphonies, including more than 30 concertos for trumpets.

He had many pupils, the most notable being Francesco Manfredini. His brother, Felice Torelli was a painter with a good reputation in Bologna.

The unfinished facade of the Basilica di San Petronio, one of Europe's largest churches
The unfinished facade of the Basilica di San
Petronio, one of Europe's largest churches
Travel tip:

The Basilica di San Petronio, which dominates Bologna’s Piazza Maggiore, is a huge structure, 132m (144yds) long, 60m (66yds) wide and 47m (154ft) tall, which makes it the sixth largest church in Europe and is seen as a symbol of the city, even if it is not actually Bologna’s cathedral (that being the nearby Duomo di San Pietro). Indeed, despite construction starting in 1380, it was not consecrated as a church until 1954, having been built as a civic temple and not transferred from the city to the diocese until 1929.  It is notable for its unfinished facade, the red and brick marble of Domenico da Varignana’s design abandoned when it had barely reached one third of the building’s height, following the intervention of Pope Pius IV, who considered the project too expensive and ambitious and ordered that the city’s focus switch instead to the building of the Archiginnasio, the official seat of the University of Bologna.

The balcony of the Casa Giulietta, which remains one of Verona's most visited attractions
The balcony of the Casa Giulietta, which remains
one of Verona's most visited attractions
Travel tip:

Verona, where Torelli was born, is now the third largest city in the northeast of Italy, with a population across its whole urban area of more than 700,000. Famous now for its wealth of tourist attractions, of which the Roman amphitheatre known the world over as L’Arena di Verona is just one, the city was also the setting for three plays by Shakespeare – Romeo and Juliet, The Two Gentlemen of Verona and The Taming of the Shrew  - although it is unknown whether the English playwright ever actually set foot in the city.  Nonetheless, Casa Giulietta in Via Cappello, about five minutes’ walk from the Arena, is still promoted as the balcony where Shakespeare’s famous scene with Romeo took place.

Also on this day:

1591: The birth of painter Guercino

1751: The death of Trevi Fountain architect Nicolo Salvi

1848: Uprising in Padua

1945: The death of Olympic fencer Italo Santelli


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14 February 2019

The Feast of the Lovers

A day for flowers, chocolates and padlocks


Romeo and Juliet - as depicted by Francesco Hayez in the 16th century
Romeo and Juliet - as depicted by
Francesco Hayez in the 19th century
Today is called La festa degli innamorati (The Feast of the Lovers) in Italy when couples celebrate their love for each other.

Italian lovers give each other flowers and chocolates and celebrate with romantic dinners just like the rest of the world.

Chocolatier Perugina make a special version of their Baci chocolate for the occasion in a shiny, red wrapper with a red cherry in the centre rather than the traditional hazelnut.

Florence and Venice are traditionally considered to be the most romantic places in Italy, but Verona, the city of Romeo and Juliet, puts on several days of celebration for the festival each year.

Verona in Love 2019 will run until February 17 and will feature a programme of poetry, music and events, including a Romeo and Juliet half-marathon.

The streets round Piazza Bra and Juliet’s house and balcony will be illuminated and the tallest building in the city, the Lamberti tower, will be lit up in red.

Market stalls offering visitors the chance to taste local products will be arranged in a heart shape in Piazza dei Signori.

Padlocks - lucchetti dell'amore - attached to a lamppost  on the Ponte Milvio across the Tiber in Rome
Padlocks - lucchetti dell'amore - attached to a lamppost
on the Ponte Milvio across the Tiber in Rome
Official guides will offer Tours of Love, leading themed walks throughout the city, and many restaurants will offer Valentine’s Day-themed romantic dinners.

The tradition of locking padlocks - lucchetti dell’amore - to bridges, railings and lamp posts to demonstrate never-ending love started in Italy after the publication of the novel Ho voglio di te (I want you) by Federico Moccia, and the screening of the film of the same name, starring Riccardo Scamarcio and Laura Chiatti.

In the story, young lovers tie a chain and padlock around a lamppost at the side of Ponte Milvio in Rome, inscribe their names on it, lock it and then throw the key into the River Tiber, suggesting they will be together forever.

This has been copied throughout Italy and hundreds have had to be removed from Ponte Milvio and the Accademia and Rialto bridges in Venice.

Special Valentine's Day Baci are in the shops
Special Valentine's Day Baci
are in the shops
The tradition of February 14 being the day to celebrate love started long ago with the death of Saint Valentine, a third-century Roman martyr, who is commemorated with a feast day on this day every year.

All that is really known about him is that he was martyred and buried at a cemetery on the Via Flaminia in Rome on 14 February, but there is a story that he was a priest, who secretly married lovers whose marriages had been banned by the Emperor.

It is believed he was imprisoned and tortured to death. His feast day was first established in 496 by Pope Gelasius I, who revered him.

The alleged skull of Saint Valentine, crowned with flowers, is displayed in the Basilica of Santa Maria in Cosmedin in Rome.

During the Middle Ages it was believed that birds paired in mid-February and this is probably why February 14, Saint Valentine’s Day, became associated with romance.

Juliet's Balcony at the so-called Casa di Giulietta in Verona
Juliet's Balcony at the so-called
Casa di Giulietta in Verona 
Travel tip:


‘Fair Verona’, the setting for William Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet, is the second biggest city in the Veneto. It is home to the first-century Roman Arena, famous for staging open air opera productions, and Casa di Giulietta, which has a romantic, marble ‘Juliet’ balcony, although there is little evidence that the real-life Romeo ever stood below it declaring his love for Juliet. Casa di Giulietta, (Juliet’s House) is a Gothic-style 14th century house, which now has a museum, in Via Cappello in Verona.





The Ponte Milvio is a narrow bridge across the Tiber in the north of Rome, close to the Stadio Olimpico football ground
The Ponte Milvio is a narrow bridge across the Tiber in the
north of Rome, close to the Stadio Olimpico football ground

Travel tip:

Ponte Milvio in Rome, where the tradition of attaching padlocks as a symbol of love started, is a bridge over the Tiber in northern Rome that was strategically important in the era of the Roman Empire and was the site of the Battle of the Milvian Bridge in October 312.The lamp post featured in the novel, Ho voglia di te, partially collapsed under the weight of all the padlocks in 2007 and afterwards all parts of the bridge were used by couples. Rome’s city council has now introduced a 50 euro fine for anyone seen attaching a love lock. The bridge is also a notorious place for A S Roma fans to gather to attack fans of the opposing team on match days.



Also on this day:



(Painting location: L'ultimo bacio dato a Giulietta da Romeo by Francesco Hayez, the Villa Carlotta museum at Tremezzo on Lake Como)

(Picture credits: Juliet's Balcony by btr; Ponte Milvio at night by Peppe64; via Wikimedia Commons)


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26 May 2018

Luca Toni - World Cup winner

Striker one of stars of 2006 triumph in Germany


Luca Toni with the World Cup in 2006. The hand gesture is the one he habitually made after scoring a goal
Luca Toni with the World Cup in 2006. The hand gesture
is the one he habitually made after scoring a goal
The footballer Luca Toni, who played an important role in Italy’s achievement in winning the soccer World Cup in Germany in 2006, was born on this day in 1977 in the small town of Pavullo nel Frignano in Emilia-Romagna.

Toni scored twice in Italy’s 3-0 victory over Ukraine in the quarter-finals before starting as the Azzurri’s main striker in both the semi-final triumph over the hosts and the final against France, in which they eventually prevailed on penalties. Toni hit the bar with one header and saw another disallowed for offside in the final.

The goals were among 16 he scored in 47 appearances for the national team but it was his remarkable club career that makes him stand out in the history of Italian football.

A muscular 6ft 4ins in height and hardly the most mobile of forwards, he was never seen as a great player, more an old-fashioned centre forward of the kind rarely seen in today’s game.

Yet between his debut for his local club, Modena, in 1994 and his retirement in 2016 following his final season with Hellas Verona, Toni found the net 322 times in club football, which makes him the fourth most prolific goalscorer among all Italian players. Most times, he celebrated by shaking his hand near his right ear, which he once explained began as meaning 'listen up - I just scored a goal!'

Toni in the colours of Fiorentina, for whom he scored 31 goals in the 2005-06 season
Toni in the colours of Fiorentina, for whom
he scored 31 goals in the 2005-06 season 
He scored more career goals indeed than Roberto Baggio, Francesco Totti and Gianluca Vialli, all of whom would probably figure in most fans’ idea of an Italian ‘hall of fame’. More too than the prolific Juventus and AC Milan star Filippo Inzaghi.

Of his contemporaries, only Alessandro del Piero (346) scored more, while historically he doffs his cap only to Silvio Piola (364) and the Internazionale legend Giuseppe Meazza (338).

In a nomadic career that saw him wear the colours of 13 different Italian clubs - plus one in Germany and one in Dubai - Toni was twice the capocannoniere - top scorer - in Serie A, hitting 31 goals for Fiorentina in 2005-06, which was the biggest individual tally in Italy’s top division for 47 years, and then sharing the honour with Inter’s Mauro Icardi some nine years later, in the 2014-15 season, when he scored 22 for Hellas Verona.

Toni did not make his Serie A debut until he was 23, by which time he had already played for five clubs in six seasons in the lower divisions.  He made his first start in the top flight for Vicenza and subsequently played alongside Baggio and Pep Guardiola at Brescia.

It was with Palermo in Serie B that Toni made his first real impact as a goalscorer. He scored 30 times as the Sicilian club won promotion in 2004 to end an absence of more than 30 years from Serie A and a further 20 the following season as the Rosanero qualified for the UEFA Cup for the first time in their history.

Toni was the No 9 for the Azzurri in the 2006 World Cup final
Toni was the No 9 for the Azzurri
in the 2006 World Cup final
Those goals brought his first call-up for the Azzurri and a big-money move to Fiorentina, where his goals in 2005-06 propelled Fiorentina to fourth place and qualification for the Champions League, although the place was rescinded after Fiorentina were caught up in the calciopoli match-fixing scandal.

Toni showed great loyalty to the fallen club, offering to stay with them even after they were ordered to start the following season in Serie B, a sentence commuted on appeal to a 15-points deduction in Serie A.  When he left at the end of the 2007 season it was only because an approach from Bayern Munich in Germany allowed him to keep his pledge of not joining a rival Italian club.

His first season in the Bundesliga was a huge success, his 24 goals helping Bayern win the title. He also scored both goals as Bayern beat Borussia Dortmund 2-1 to add the German Cup and complete the double. Despite an ankle injury keeping him out for a long spell, he still managed 14 goals in his second season.

After falling out with manager Louis Van Gaal midway through the 2009-10 season, Toni was on the move again, spending brief spells with Roma, Genoa, Juventus, Al Nasr in Dubai and Fiorentina again. It looked like his career was drawing to a close but then newly-promoted Verona took a gamble by offering him a one-year contract to play on beyond his 37th birthday.

It paid off handsomely as Toni enjoyed a renaissance, rediscovering his old deadliness in the penalty area to score 20 goals in the 2013-14 season and 22 in the 2014-15 campaign, by the end of which he was 38, when his 22 goals made him the oldest capocannoniere in the history of Serie A.

Toni (left) and his teammate Miroslav Klose  in the Bayern Munich team in 2007-08
Toni (left) and his teammate Miroslav Klose
in the Bayern Munich team in 2007-08
His retirement at the end of the 2015-16 season came with a fairytale ending in a 2-1 home win over already-crowned Serie A champions Juventus, in which he scored Verona’s first goal with a penalty taken in the so-called Panenka style, chipped delicately into the centre of the goal after the goalkeeper commits himself to diving left or right.

After retirement, Toni took courses with a view to remaining at Verona as director of football but left in 2017 and has more recently worked as a pundit.

Married to the model Maria Cecchetto, with whom he has two children, he was back on a football pitch earlier this month in a star-studded testimonial for the great Azzurri midfielder Andrea Pirlo, getting on the scoresheet as usual as the match ended 7-7.

The Castle of Montecuccolo at Pavullo nel Frignano
The Castle of Montecuccolo at Pavullo nel Frignano
Travel tip:

Pavullo nel Frignano, where Luca Toni was born, is a town of around 17,000 inhabitants in the Modenese Apennines. It is home to the medieval Castle of Montecuccolo, birthplace of the 17th century condottiero - mercenary - Raimondo Montecuccoli. Pavullo sadly suffered extensive damage during the Second World War because of its proximity to the German defences on Gothic Line.

The Arena di Verona hosted a football match in the early days of the local football team, Hellas Verona
The Arena di Verona hosted a football match in the early
days of the local football team, Hellas Verona
Travel tip:

Toni’s final team, Hellas Verona, acquired its name after it was founded in 1903 by a group of students from the prestigious local lyceum, where a classics professor put forward the name Hellas, which is the Greek equivalent of the Latin word patria, meaning homeland. The city was largely indifferent towards football at first but the Veronese began to take more of an interest after the club staged a game against their local rivals Bentegodi in the city's Roman amphitheatre, now famous as the Arena di Verona, attracting national media attention.

Also on this day:

1805: Napoleon Bonaparte crowned King of Italy

1955: Formula One motor racing champion Alberto Ascari tragically dies in a crash at Monza

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19 April 2018

Sara Simeoni - high jumper

Held world record and won Olympic gold



Sara Simeoni won the Olympic gold medal in 1980 in Moscow
Sara Simeoni won the Olympic gold
medal in 1980 in Moscow
The high jumper Sara Simeoni, who is regarded as one of Italy’s greatest female athletes, was born on this day in 1953 in Rivoli Veronese, a village about 20km (12 miles) northwest of Verona.

Only the second woman to clear two metres, she won the gold medal in her event at the Moscow Olympics of 1980, setting a Games record in the process.

The Moscow Games was boycotted by 66 countries in protest at the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, yet Simeoni, who competed under the Olympic flag after Italy left the issue of participation up to individual athletes, still deserved applause as the only winner in the women’s track and field programme not from an Eastern Bloc country.

She confessed later that she suffered a panic attack just before the final in the Lenin Stadium and was physically sick, but then reminded herself that she was the world record holder and eventually beat the Polish jumper Urszula Kielan with a leap of 1.97m, an Olympic record.

A great friend of the late Pietro Mennea, another 1980 Olympic champion from whom she drew inspiration, she had won the silver medal in Montreal in 1976 and did so again in Los Angeles in 1984.

Simeoni won nine other major international championships, including the European indoor title four times, and after clearing 2.01m in Brescia in 1978 held the Italian high jump record for 29 years.

Simeoni wanted to be a dancer but was told she was too tall
Simeoni wanted to be a dancer but was
told she was too tall
An advocate for the Fosbury Flop style of high jumping, in which the jumper approaches the bar on a curving run and jumps head first and legs last, with the back facing downwards, Simeoni took up athletics first of all as a way to spend time with her friends outside school.

She had wanted to be a dancer, but at 1.78m (5ft 10ins) and with size 41 shoes (UK equivalent size 8), she was physically better suited to other pursuits. When she began to practise the high jump aged 13, it was clear she had talent. She won the Italian national championships for the first time in 1970 and defended the title successfully for 10 years in a row before being beaten by Sandra Dini in 1981. Simeoni regained her crown in 1982 and had won it 14 times when she retired in 1986. She was also 10 times Italian indoor champion, as well as the national pentathlon champion in 1972.

Her first major international competition was the European outdoor championships in 1971 and she was sixth at the Munich Olympics in 1972 before winning her first medal, the bronze, at the Universiade in Moscow the following year.

Simeoni’s first gold medal at a major games came at the 1975 Mediterranean Games in Algiers, which she followed with Olympic silver in 1976, when she was beaten by the East German Rosie Ackermann, who would become one of her fiercest rivals.

In 1977, she began an extraordinary run of successes that brought her nine gold medals in the space of five seasons and established her as one of Italy’s greatest athletes, male or female.

Simeoni in 2013 at the funeral of her friend, the Italian sprint champion Pietro Mennea
Simeoni in 2013 at the funeral of her friend, the
Italian sprint champion Pietro Mennea
In that period, Simeoni was European indoor champion four times, won gold at the Universiade twice and took the Mediterranean title for a second time as well as becoming European outdoor champion in 1978 and fulfilling her Olympic dream in 1980.

Winning the European title in Prague in August 1978, she matched the world record mark of 2.01m she had set in Brescia only a few weeks earlier.

He silver medal at the 1984 Olympics was considered a personal triumph, even though she was beaten by West Germany’s Ulrike Meyfarth in the final.  Simeoni had struggled with tendon injuries over the preceding two years and was not expected to do particularly well.  The Italian Olympic Committee, recognising her career achievements, asked her to carry the Italian flag at the opening ceremony.

Once she began competing, however, the instincts that had enabled her to win so many medals kicked in and she pushed Meyfarth all the way, clearing two metres for the first time in six years.

Simeoni married her coach, Ermino Azzaro, and they have a son, Roberto, who is also a high jumper.

After giving up competition, Simeoni became a teacher at a middle school in Garda, on the lake of the same name, as well as an ambassador for young people and women’s rights. In 2020 she was lecturing in motor sciences at the University of Chieti in the Abruzzo region of central Italy.

A view over Rivoli Veronese
A view over Rivoli Veronese
Travel tip:

Rivoli Veronese, a village on a hill on the banks of the Adige river, is famous as the scene of the Battle of Rivoli in January 1797, in which Napoleon inflicted a decisive defeat upon the Austrians. The famous Paris street Rue de Rivoli, which extends from Place de la Concorde almost to Place de la Bastille, 3.8km (2.4 miles) to the southeast, passing the Jardin des Tuileries and the Louvre.   In military history, the area has always been seen as a formidable obstacle.

The waterfront at Garda on Lake Garda
The waterfront at Garda on Lake Garda
Travel tip:

The popular resort of Garda is one of the main resorts on the southern end of the lake that bears its name. Garda shows traces of habitation over many centuries, from the Venetian merchants' villas to rock etchings in the hills above the town.  Santa Maria Assunta, the parish church, originally dates from the 6th-7th century but was not completed until 1764. A rebuilding project in 1530 was abandoned due to lack of funds.

More reading:

Pietro Mennea - the Italian won became one of the world's best sprinters

The long-distance feats of Alberto Cova

How Raimondo d'Inzeo competed in eight consecutive Olympics

Also on this day:

1798: The death of the brilliant Venetian painter Canaletto

1937: The birth of chef Antonio Carluccio

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20 March 2018

Giampiero Moretti - entrepreneur racing driver

Gentleman racer behind ubiquitous Momo accessories brand


Gianpiero Moretti won the 24 Hours of Daytona at the 15th attempt
Gianpiero Moretti won the 24 Hours of
Daytona at the 15th attempt
Giampiero Moretti, a motor racing enthusiast who made his fortune almost literally by reinventing the wheel, was born on this day in 1940 in Milan.

Known as 'the last of the gentleman racers' because of his unfailing courtesy, refined manners and an unquenchable determination to succeed on the track, Moretti made a profound mark on the sport through his ergonomic rethink of the racecar steering wheel.

Steering wheels were traditionally large and made of steel or polished wood but Moretti saw that reducing the diameter of the wheel would cut the effort needed by the driver to steer the car, helping him conserve energy and creating a more comfortable driving position.  He also covered the wheel with leather to improve the driver's grip, and gave it a contoured surface.

He made the first one for a car he planned to race himself and there was soon interest among other drivers and he began to make more wheels.  His big break came when Ferrari invited him to design a leather wheel for their Formula One car.

Enzo Ferrari himself was a traditionalist who took some persuading that the tried-and-tested old steering wheel was not the best but when his drivers took to it with such enthusiasm he sanctioned its installation in the new Ferrari 158 that John Surtees was to drive in the 1964 F1 season.

The Ferrari 158 in which John Surtees won the 1964 Formula One drivers' championship
The Ferrari 158 in which John Surtees won the 1964
Formula One drivers' championship
Surtees loved it and, as it happened, won his only F1 world title that year, his victories in the German and Italian Grand Prix enabling him to pip his fellow British driver Graham Hill by one point.

Ferrari was sold on Moretti's innovative skills and decided he wanted his steering wheel on all Ferrari cars.

On the back of this encouragement, Moretti acquired a small factory premises near Verona and set up the company, Momo (an amalgam of the first two letters of Moretti and of Monza, the Italian race track), of which Ferrari was the principal client.

Eventually, the company expanded its lines to include helmets, shift knobs, road wheels, fireproof driving suits, gloves and shoes, and branched out into sponsorship and team ownership. Although Moretti sold the company in 1996, its red and yellow logo is still familiar today.

Born into a wealthy Milanese family who owned a large pharmaceuticals business, Moretti caught the racing bug when he was studying for his political science degree at the University of Pavia and soon began taking part in sports car events.

Moretti established the Momo motor racing accessories business in the 1960s
Moretti established the Momo motor racing
accessories business in the 1960s
Although he won from time to time, it was an expensive hobby and it was part to finance his racing without relying on his family's support that he launched his business.

It enabled him to continue to pursue his ultimate dream, which was to win the 24 Hours of Daytona, the prestigous endurance sports car race that takes place in Florida each year.

Having been a fixture at Daytona for many years, racing Porsches and Ferraris and developing close friendships with movie actors such as Gene Hackman and Paul Newman, for whom he would often could pasta dishes in his motorhome, Moretti finally could call himself a winner in 1998, at the 15th attempt.

In their Ferrari 333sp - a car Moretti had persuaded Ferrari to develop specifically to race in the United States - Moretti and his co-drivers, Arie Luyendyk, Didier Theys and Mauro Baldi, recovered from 18 laps behind to take the lead in the final three hours, with Moretti at the wheel to take the chequered flag.

Amazingly, the team also won the 12 Hours of Sebring only a couple of months later, while Moretti partnered another Italian driver, Massimiliano "Mad Max" Papis to win the Six Hours of Watkins Glen, making Moretti the only driver to win all three events in the same year.

Moretti, who never married but had two sons, Matteo and Marco, died in Milan in 2012, at the age of 71.

The chimneys of the cement factory are still a  feature of the Tregnano skyline
The chimneys of the cement factory are still a
feature of the Tregnano skyline
Travel tip:

Moretti established his first factory at Tregnano, a small town outside Verona that for many years enjoyed a thriving economy due to the establishment of a cement factory that at its peak supplied the cement that went into the Ponte della Libertà, the road bridge linking Venice with the mainland that was opened in 1933.  Although the factory closed in 1973, the factory's tall chimneys still exist.  Notable buildings include the 15th century parish church of Santa Maria Assunta and the remains of a castle built between the 11th and 12th centuries.

Visit Booking.com to find a hotel in Verona

The Duomo at Monza is often overlooked by visitors who flock to the motor racing circuit
The Duomo at Monza is often overlooked by
visitors who flock to the motor racing circuit
Travel tip:

Monza, which is situated about 18km (11 miles) north of Milan, is best known as the home of the Italian Grand Prix, and while the racing circuit within the Parco di Monza to the north of the town attracts thousands of visitors, the town itself is often passed by, despite many historic buildings. These include a beautiful Duomo completed in 1681 with a Baroque facade decorated in Gothic style, the 14th century Arengario civic palace, a magnificent 18th century Royal Villa, designed by Giuseppe Piermarini (of Teatro alla Scala fame) and the Ponte dei Leoni, a bridge of Roman origin.