Giampiero Moretti - entrepreneur racing driver

Gentleman racer behind ubiquitous Momo accessories brand

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

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

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

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

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.

More reading:

Enzo Ferrari and the world's most famous sports cars

Alberto Ascari - triumph and tragedy of Italy's double F1 champion

Mario Andretti, the Italian who is America's only F1 champion

Also on this day:

1898: The birth of exclusive jeweller Fulco di Verdura

1934: The birth of Azeglio Vicini, coach of Italy's 1990 World Cup team



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Bobby Solo - pop singer

Sixties star found fame after Sanremo disqualification

Bobby Solo was heavily influenced
by his idol Elvis Presley

Bobby Solo, who was twice winner of Italy's prestigious Sanremo Festival yet had his biggest hit with a song that was disqualified, was born Roberto Satti on this day in 1945 in Rome.

The singer and songwriter won the contest in 1965 and again in 1969 but it was the controversy over his 1964 entry that thrust him into the spotlight and sent him to the top of the Italian singles charts with the first record to sell more than one million copies in Italy.

To emphasise that the competition was to select the best song, rather than the best artist, each entry was sung by two artists, one a native Italian, the other an international guest star. In 1964, Solo was paired with the American singer Frankie Laine to showcase Una lacrima sul viso (A Tear on Your Face).

Laine performed the song in English but Solo was stricken with a throat problem. Rather than withdraw, he sang the song with the help of a backing track, only to be told afterwards that this was against the rules.

Solo celebrates his victory at Sanremo in 1965

The song was disqualified but attracted such attention that it became a huge hit, topping the Italian singles chart for eight weeks. Sales in Italy and other countries eventually topped two million and set Solo on the way to a highly successful career.

On the back of the song's success, Solo - a rock and roll singer in the mould of his idol, Elvis Presley - starred in a movie, also entitled Una lacrima sul viso, in which he sang not only the title track but several other of his songs.

In 1965 he returned to Sanremo, where he was chosen to sing Se piangi, se ridi (If you cry, if you laugh), of which the American folk ensemble the New Christy Minstrels performed an English version, and this time won.  The song gave Solo his second No 1 in the Italian charts and gave him fifth place in the Eurovision Song Contest the same year.

Four years later, partnered with the Italian female star Iva Zanicchi, Solo achieved his third Sanremo triumph with Zingara.

Other 60s hits included Quello sbagliato,Cristina and La Casa del Signore, the Italian version of Elvis Presley’s Crying In The Chapel, his 1966 Sanremo entry Questa volta, which he sung with English group The Yardbirds,  Per far piangere un uomo, an Italian cover of the Tom Jones song, To Make A Big Man Cry, and an Italian cover of Scott McKenzie’s San Francisco.

In all, Solo participated in 12 Sanremo Festivals between 1964 and 2003 and in a recording career spanning six decades has made more than 40 singles and in excess of 30 albums.  His total record sales have been conservatively estimated at more than five million and he still performs today, well into his 70s.

Bobby Solo on stage in 2018

The son of an airline executive from Friuli and an Istrian mother, Solo acquired his love for music, especially American country and rock and roll, from his brother-in-law, an American serviceman who had married his sister and lived in Verona.

Blessed with a good voice, he taught himself to play the guitar and after watching Elvis Presley in the film Jailhouse Rock he was inspired to begin writing songs in his teens. After his father had been relocated to Linate airport in Milan, he earned an audition with the Milan company Dischi Recordi, who signed him up and would produce all his records until the early 1970s.

Solo acquired his stage name at around the same time, and there is a story - perhaps apocryphal - that he became Bobby Solo by accident, the intention having been that he would perform simply as Bobby. According to the story,  the secretary who took down the record label details for his first single mistook the instruction that he would be known as "solo Bobby" (only Bobby) and wrote down his name as Bobby Solo.

The Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II in Milan

Travel tip:

Dischi Recordi, which operated from 1958 until the company was sold in 1994, had its headquarters right in the heart of Milan in Via Giovanni Berchet, a stone's throw from the Duomo and across Via Ugo Foscolo from the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, the magnificent 1861 shopping arcade, with its central dome and arching glass and cast iron roof, which is the oldest shopping mall  in the world still in use and has become a Milan landmark.  The Palazzo Dischi is now the home of upmarket sports car manufacturer Ferrari's flagship merchandise store.

Milan hotels by Booking.com

The harbour at Sanremo in Liguria

Travel tip:

Sanremo in Liguria, the Italian Riviera resort that has been home to the Sanremo Festival since 1951, expanded rapidly in the mid-18th century, when the phenomenon of tourism began to take hold, albeit primarily among the wealthy. Several grand hotels were established and the Emperor Nicholas II of Russia was among the European royals who took holidays there. The Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel made it his permanent home.

More reading:

How Gigliola Cinquetti conquered Sanremo and Eurovision at just 16

Eros Ramazotti - the Sanremo winner with 65 million sales

Little Tony - Italy's answer to Little Richard

Also on this day:

1848: The Five Days of Milan

1944: When Vesuvius last blew its top


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Adriano Celentano – singer and actor

Italy’s biggest-selling recording artist of all time

Adriano Celentano on stage in 2012

The pop singer and movie actor Adriano Celentano, who is estimated to have sold in the region of 200 million records in a career spanning 60 years, was born on this day in 1938 in Milan.

One of the most important and influential figures in Italian pop culture, Celentano enjoys such enduring popularity that when he gave his first live performance for 18 years at the Arena di Verona in 2012, screened on the Canale 5 television channel, it attracted an audience of more than nine million viewers.

He has recorded more than 40 albums, the latest of which, Tutti le migliori (All The Best) reviving his collaboration with another veteran Italian star, Mina, was released only last year and included new material.

Celentano’s biggest individual hits include Stai lontana di me (Stay away from me, 1962), Si è spento il sole (The sun has gone out, 1962), Pregherò (I will pray, 1962), Il ragazzo della via Gluck (The boy from Gluck Street, 1966), La coppia più bello del mondo (The most beautiful couple in the world, 1967), Azzurro (Blue, 1968), Sotto le lenzuola (Under the sheets, 1971), Ti avrò (I will have you, 1978) and Susanna (1984).

He also had an unexpected worldwide hit in 1972 with Prisencolinensinainciusol – a made-up word that Celentano sung in such a way as to demonstrate what American English – the language of most pop songs – sounds like to a non-English speaking Italian.

Celentano, centre, with his 1950s band The Rock Boys

Celentano also appeared in more than 30 films and countless TV shows, mainly comedies, in which he developed a character with comic facial expressions and a distinctive way of walking. It was no surprise that he was a great fan of the zany American comic actor Jerry Lewis.

One of his earliest parts was in Federico Fellini’s classic La Dolce Vita, in which he played a rock musician, while his most acclaimed role was in Pietro Germi’s Serafino, in which he played a simple shepherd who inherits a fortune from a wealthy art and squanders it all before returning to his old life in the mountains.

Born in Milan in Via Cristoforo Gluck, in a modest neighbourhood near Milano Centrale station, Celentano grew up obsessed with the American rock and roll scene.  His early music was pure rock and roll, heavily influenced by Elvis Presley, Little Richard and Bill Haley, whose iconic track Rock Around the Clock was part of the soundtrack of Blackboard Jungle, the film that captured the imagination of Celentano and his fellow teenagers when it was released in 1955.

He and a group of friends formed a group The Rock Boys, who recorded covers of Rip It Up, Jailhouse Rock, Blueberry Hill and Tutti Frutti.  They are credited now with having introduced Italy to the rock and roll genre.

Celentano with his wife, actress Claudia Mori, on the
set of a TV show in 1972

As his career developed, he won the Sanremo Music Festival in 1970 with Chi non lavora non fa l’amore (Who does not work does not make love), in which he partnered his wife, Claudia Mori.

He had met Claudia, a beautiful actress and singer from Rome, on the set of a film in 1963 and they married secretly in Grosseto the following year.  

Mori, who appeared with her husband in several films as well as accompanying him in several duets, is the manager of his record company, Clan Celentano. They have three children – Rosita, Giacomo and Rosalinda, all born in the 1960s.

In the 1970s, Celentano was so popular and the demand for tickets for his concerts so great he began to stage events at football stadiums, playing to 65,000 at the San Paolo stadium in Naples and 50,000 at the football stadium in Rimini.

He has several times taken long breaks from performing live, in order to focus on other projects. After 14 years without going on stage, he made a comeback of sorts in 2008 at the Giuseppe Meazza Stadium in Milan – home of his beloved Internazionale – as part of the celebrations for the club’s centenary.

Scene at the Arena di Verona for Celentano's 2012 concert

It set the seed for him to plan his 2012 show in Verona, where he demonstrated that his voice had lost none of its power and sophistication, reeling off a string of his greatest hits from six decades of music.

Increasingly a political figure – many of his songs carry strong messages – he is a supporter of the centre-right Five Star Movement, led by his long-time friend Beppe Grillo.

The Palazzo del Ghiaccio now stages events such as banquets
in a uniquely striking setting 

Travel tip:

Adriano Celentano made his performing debut in 1957 at the Palazzo del Ghiaccio (The Ice Palace), a beautiful Art Nouveau building in Via Piranesi, in the Porta Vittoria area of the city. Opened in 1923, covering 1,800 square metres, it was once the major covered ice rink in Europe and one of the largest in the world. The building was seriously damaged during the Second World War but was restored and reopened and remained an active venue for skating events until 2002. It has also hosted boxing, fencing and basketball among other sports, as well as entertainment events such as the Italian Festival of Rock and Roll at which Celentano took his first bows. His contemporary Mina played there for the first time in 1959. The Palazzo is still an important venue today for fashion shows, exhibitions, business conventions, concerts and other events.

The Piazza Cinque Giornate in Milan

Travel tip:

Porta Vittoria was formerly known as Porta Tosa, the eastern gate of the Spanish walls of the city in the 16^th century. It was renamed Porta Vittoria with Italian unification in 1861 in respect of its historical significance, having been the seen of a battle between Milanese rebels and the occupying Austrian forces during the so-called Five Days of Milan in 1848.  The actual gate was demolished in 1881 and its location in what is now Piazza Cinque Giornate is marked with an obelisk designed by Giuseppe Grandi.

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Germano Mosconi – sports writer and presenter

Short-tempered journalist who became the news

Broadcaster became an unintentional
internet phenomenon

Germano Mosconi, who became a well-known television personality, was born on this day in 1932 in San Bonifacio in the Veneto.

Mosconi became notorious for his short temper and swearing on air and was regarded as a bit of a character on local television. But he became known all over Italy and throughout the world after a video of him someone posted anonymously on the internet went viral.

In the 1980s Mosconi delivered sports reports on Telenuovo in Verona and in 1982 he received the Cesare d’Oro international award for journalistic merit.

But he later became known for his excessive swearing and blaspheming. The anonymous video showed his irate reactions to various problems he encountered while broadcasting, such as people unexpectedly entering the studio, background noises and illegible writing on the news sheets he received.

His use of swearwords, blasphemy and insults in both Italian and Venetian dialect and his other humorous antics made the video compulsive viewing all over the world.

Internet forums discussing Mosconi appeared and Mosconi fan clubs were set up.

However, the sports journalist did not relish his notoriety and declined every request for an interview related to the video.

Away from television, he edited the German-language magazine Gardasee Zeitung, dedicated to tourists visiting Lake Garda, and worked for the newspapers Il Gazzettino and L’Arena in Verona.

Mosconi died in Verona in 2012 at the age of 79, following a long illness. He left a wife, Elsa, and one daughter, Margherita.

The cathedral in San Bonifacio

Travel tip:

San Bonifacio, where Mosconi was born, is a town in the province of Verona about 25 kilometres to the east of the city of Verona. It borders the municipality of Soave, where the famous white wine is produced. San Bonifacio’s main sights are the seventh century Abbey of St Peter with its imposing 12th century bell tower and the 12th century cathedral.

Travel tip:

Verona is famous as the city of Romeo and Juliet and for opera. Mosconi worked as a broadcaster there and also as a journalist on L’Arena, which was founded in 1866, before the Veneto became part of the Kingdom of Italy, and is one of the oldest newspapers in Italy. Named after the Roman amphitheatre in Piazza Bra, which hosts concerts and operas every summer, the newspaper is now based in San Martino Buon Albergo, a suburb of Verona.

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Cesare Lombroso – criminologist

Professor who first encouraged study of criminal mind

Cesare Lombroso changed the way the
world thought about criminals

Cesare Lombroso, a university professor often referred to as ‘the father of criminology’ was born on this day in 1835 in Verona.

Although many of his views are no longer held to be correct, he was the first to establish the validity of scientific study of the criminal mind, paving the way for a generation of psychiatrists and psychologists to create a greater understanding of criminal behaviour.

In broad terms, Lombroso's theory was that criminals could be distinguished from law-abiding people by multiple physical characteristics, which he contended were throwbacks to primitive, even subhuman ancestors, which brought with them throwbacks to primitive behaviour that went against the rules and expectations of modern civilized society.

Through years of postmortem examinations and comparative studies of criminals, the mentally disturbed and normal non-criminal individuals, Lombroso formed the belief that ‘born criminals’ could be identified by such features as the angle of their forehead, the size of their ears, a lack of symmetry in the face or even arms of excessive length. He even argued that certain characteristics – he called them “stigmata” – were common to particular types of offenders.

He also believed that criminals had less sensitivity to pain, sharper vision, a lack of normal morals, were more vain, vindictive and cruel, although he did not suggest that there was no prospect of anyone born with “stigmata” leading a blameless life.

Lombroso at work at the University of Pavia

Indeed, he proposed reforms to the Italian penal system that included more humane and constructive treatment of convicts through the use of work programmes intended to make them more productive members of society.

Lombroso’s theories were initially widely influential in Europe and the United States, even though over time the idea that criminal behaviour had hereditary causes was largely rejected in favour of environmental factors, and the idea that someone could be born a criminal was established as implausible.

At the time, however, Lambroso was a respected figure. Born into a wealthy Jewish family in Verona, descended from a long line of rabbis, Lombroso studied at the universities of Padua, Vienna, and Paris.

From 1862 until 1876 he was a professor of psychiatry at the University of Pavia and of forensic medicine and hygiene (1876), psychiatry (1896) and criminal anthropology (1906) at the University of Turin. He was also the director of a mental asylum in Pesaro. 

The monument to Lombroso in his home town of Verona

He published books entitled L’uomo delinquente (The Criminal Man; 1876) and Le Crime, causes et remèdes (Crime, Its Causes and Remedies; 1899).

In addition to his work in the field of criminology, Lambroso devoted much time to studying his belief that genius was closely related to madness.  He wrote a book in 1889, The Man of Genius, in which he argued that artistic genius was a form of hereditary insanity and in which he claimed that, in his exploration of geniuses descending into madness, he could find only six men who exhibited no tendencies towards madness - Galileo, Da Vinci, Voltaire, Machiavelli, Michelangelo, and Darwin – but that Shakespeare, Plato, Aristotle, Mozart and Dante all displayed what he called "degenerate symptoms".

The Roman amphitheatre in Verona

Travel tip:

Verona, Lombroso’s home town – under Austrian rule at the time of his birth – 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 – one of those geniuses Lambroso believed sat on the cusp of madness.  Romeo and Juliet, The Two Gentlemen of Verona and The Taming of the Shrew all had Verona as their backdrop, although it is unknown whether the English playwright ever actually set foot in the city.  There is a monument to Cesare Lombroso in a park also named after him on the banks of the Adige river opposite the Cathedral of Santa Maria Matricolare.

The Courtyard of the Statues inside the University of Pavia

Travel tip:

Situated only 35km (22 miles) from Milan, Pavia has the advantages of close proximity to all the services and opportunities on offer in northern Italy’s principal city yet itself offers a calmer way of life amid its ancient streets and elegant buildings, which remain as a legacy of its stature as the one-time capital of the Lombardy region. It is a city of rich cultural heritage with 19 museums, four public libraries, four cinemas and theatres, two schools of music arts and a music conservatory. Its university, home to 24,000 students, was founded in 1361 and now has 13 faculties.

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Emilio Salgari – adventure novelist

Author’s heroes and stories are still part of popular culture

The novelist Emilio Salgari, photographed
 in the early 20th century

Emilio Salgari, who is considered the father of Italian adventure fiction, was born on this day in 1862 in Verona.

Despite producing a long list of novels that were widely read in Italy, many of which were turned into films, Salgari never earned much money from his work. His life was blighted by depression and he committed suicide in 1911.

But he is still among the 40 most translated Italian authors and his most popular novels have been adapted as comics, animated series and films. Although he was not given the credit at the time, he is now considered the grandfather of the Spaghetti Western.

Salgari was born into a family of modest means and from a young age wanted to go to sea. He studied seamanship at a naval academy in Venice but was considered not good enough academically and never graduated.

He started writing as a reporter on the Verona daily newspaper La Nuova Arena, which published some of his fiction as serials. He developed a reputation for having lived a life of adventure and claimed to have explored the Sudan, met Buffalo Bill in Nebraska and sailed the Seven Seas. He actually met Buffalo Bill during his Wild West Show tour of Italy and never ventured further than the Adriatic.

He turned his passion for exploration and discovery into adventure fiction, signing his stories, Captain Salgari.

The cover of Salgari's 1900 novel, Le Tigri
di Mompracem (The Tigers of Monpracem)

He once had to defend his pen name by fighting a duel, after his claim to the title was questioned.

Salgari married Ida Peruzzi, with whom he had four children, but despite his popularity in Italy and many countries abroad, he earned little money from his books and the family had to live hand to mouth.

In 1889 Salgari’s father committed suicide, then in 1903 Ida became ill and Salgari struggled to pay her medical bills. He became increasingly depressed and attempted suicide in 1910.

After Ida was committed to a mental hospital in 1911, Salgari took his own life by imitating the Japanese ritual of seppuku, disemboweling himself in the style of a samurai warrior.

He left a letter for his publisher, saying: ‘To you that have grown rich from the sweat of my brow while keeping myself and my family in misery, I ask only that from those profits you find the funds to pay for my funeral. I salute you while I break my pen. Emilio Salgari.’ One of his sons was also to commit suicide in 1933.

By the time he died, Salgari had written more than 200 adventure stories and novels set in exotic locations, inspired by reading foreign literature, travel magazines and encyclopediae.

His major series were The Pirates of Malaysia, The Black Corsair Saga and the The Pirates of Bermuda. He also wrote adventures set in the west of America. His heroes were pirates and outlaws fighting against greed and corruption.

Sergio Leone is said to have been a fan of Salgari's books,
said to have been the inspiration for his Spaghetti Westerns

He opposed colonisation and his legendary hero, the pirate Sandokan, led his men in attacks against the Dutch and British fleets.

His books had been so popular that his publisher hired other writers to produce stories in Salgari’s name after his death, but no other Italian adventure writer was ever as successful as Salgari.

His style spread to films and television, with Sergio Leone’s outlaw heroes in his Spaghetti Westerns being inspired by Salgari’s characters.

Among the 50 film adaptations of Salgari’s novels is Morgan the Pirate, starring Steve Reeves.

His books were enjoyed by celebrities such as Federico Fellini, Pietro Mascagni, Umberto Eco and Che Guevara.

In the late 1990s, new translations of his novels began to be published and in 2001 the National Salgari Association was founded in Italy to celebrate his work.

It has been suggested that the first film adaptation of a Salgari novel was Cabiria, directed by Giovanni Pastrone, which bears many similarities to Salgari’s 1908 adventure novel, Carthage is Burning.

Federico Fellini was another fan

Gabriele D’Annunzio was billed as the official screenwriter but he came on board only after the film had been shot to change some of the names and captions.

Vitale di Stefano then brought Salgari’s pirates to the big screen in the early 1920s with a series of films that included The Black Corsair and The Queen of the Caribbean.

Salgari’s popular character, Sandokan, was played by Steve Reeves in Sandokan the Great and The Pirates of Malaysia. A Sandokan television miniseries later appeared throughout Europe starring Kabir Bedi in the title role.

Earlier this year, Neapolitan anti-mafia investigators announced plans to indict Francesco 'Sandokan' Schiavone, for the killing of a policeman in 1989. The gangster’s nickname shows Salgari’s character still has influence today, more than a century after his creator’s death.

The Arena at Verona, the city's most famous landmark

Travel tip:

Emilio Salgari was born in Verona, which was made famous by another writer as the city of Romeo and Juliet. He began his writing career on the daily Nuova Arena newspaper, now called L’Arena, which was founded in 1866 before the Veneto became part of the Kingdom of Italy and is one of the oldest newspapers in Italy. Named after L’Arena, the Roman amphitheatre in Piazza Bra that hosts concerts and operas, the newspaper is now based in San Martino Buon Albergo, a small town just outside Verona.

The imposing entrance to the Cimitero Monumentale

Travel tip:

After his dramatic death, Emilio Salgari was laid to rest in the Cimitero Monumentale just outside the city walls of Verona in Piazzale del Cimitero. Designed by Giuseppe Barbieri in 1829, the cemetery has an impressive neo-classical façade with two carved lions on each side of the steps. These have prompted the Veronese to refer to the cemetery as Hotel dei Leoni, the hotel of the lions.

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Francesco Scipione – playwright

Erudite marquis revitalised Italian drama

An 18th century portrait of Scipione by
an unknown artist

Dramatist Francesco Scipione, marchese di Maffei, was born on this day in 1675 in Verona.

His most famous work was his verse tragedy, Merope, which attempted to introduce Greek and French classical simplicity into Italian drama. This prepared the way for the dramatic tragedies of Vittorio Alfieri and the librettos of Pietro Metastasio later in the 18th century.

After studying at Jesuit colleges in Parma and Rome, Scipione went to fight on the side of Bavaria in the War of the Spanish Succession. He saw action in 1704 at the Battle of Schellenberg, near Donauworth, when his brother, Alessandro, was second in command at the battle.

In 1710, Scipione was one of the founders of an influential literary journal, Giornale dei letterati, a vehicle for his ideas about reforming Italian drama. He founded a later periodical, Osservazioni letterarie, to promote the same cause.

Scipione spent time studying the manuscripts in the Royal Library at Turin and arranged the collection of objects of art which Charles Emmanuel, Duke of Savoy had brought from Rome. He also travelled extensively in France, England, the Netherlands and Germany and received an honorary doctorate from Oxford University.

The Scipione statue in Piazza dei
Signori in Verona

When Scipione’s verse tragedy, Merope, was first performed in 1713, it met with astonishing success. It was based on Greek mythology and the French neoclassical period, signalling the way for the later reform of Italian tragedy. It was popular with the audience because of its rapid action and the elimination of the prologue and the chorus.

In addition to Merope, Scipione wrote other plays, scholarly works and poetry, and he also translated the epic poems, the Iliad and Aeneid.

Another of his major works is a valuable account of the history and antiquities of his native city - Verona illustrata: A Compleat History of the Ancient Amphitheatres and in particular that of Verona.

Scipione built a museum in Verona to house his art and archaeological collection, which he bequeathed to his native city. He died there at the age of 79 in 1755.  A statue to him was later erected in Piazza dei Signori in Verona.

Travel tip:

The secondary school, Liceo Maffei, is named in Scipione’s honour in the town of his birth, Verona. The city in the Veneto is famous as the setting for Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet as well as for its Roman amphitheatre, L’Arena di Verona in Piazza Bra, where opera and music concerts are now regularly performed.

The Biblioteca Reale is housed inside the Royal Palace
in Turin's Piazzetta Reale

Travel tip:

The Royal Library, Biblioteca Reale, in Turin, where Scipione studied the manuscripts, is on the ground floor of the Royal Palace in Piazzetta Reale. It was originally established to hold the rare manuscripts collected by members of the House of Savoy.

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Massimo Moratti - business tycoon

Billionaire chairman oversaw golden era at Internazionale

Massimo Moratti followed his father, Angelo, in
becoming chairman of Internazionale of Milan

The billionaire tycoon and former chairman of the Internazionale football club, Massimo Moratti, was born on this day in 1945 in Bosco Chiesanuova, a small town in the Veneto about 20km (12 miles) north of Verona.

His primary business, the energy provider Saras, of which he is chief executive, owns about 15 per cent of Italy’s oil refining capacity, mainly through the Sarroch refinery on Sardinia, which has a capacity of about 300,000 barrels per day.

Moratti is estimated to have net wealth of about €1.28 billion ($1.4 billion) yet is said to have spent close to €1.5 billion of his personal fortune on buying players during his chairmanship of Inter, which lasted from 1995 until 2013 and encompassed a period of unprecedented success.

Between 2005 and 2011 Inter won the Serie A title five times, the Coppa Italia and the Supercoppa Italiana four times each, the Champions League once and the FIFA World Club cup once.

The five Scudetti came in consecutive seasons from 2006 to 2010, equalling the league record.

The only comparable period was the 1960s, when Massimo's father, Angelo, was chairman and Inter won three Scudetti and the European Cup, forerunner of the Champions League, twice, with the team known as Grande Inter – ‘the great Inter’.

Moratti is a billionaire businessman who made his fortune
from the family's energy company, Saras

Moratti would go to any lengths to sign the best players. His most famous purchase was the Brazilian striker Ronaldo – then considered the best player in the world – from Barcelona in the summer of 1997, but two years later he paid a then world-record €48 million for Lazio striker Christian Vieri.

Other superstars who wore the famous blue and black stripes in his time included Roberto Carlos, Hernán Crespo, Roberto Baggio, Zlatan Ibrahimović, Luís Figo and Patrick Vieira.

Yet he was notorious for hiring and firing coaches. In his time in office there were 15 changes of coach. Even during the years of success, he ditched Roberto Mancini for José Mourinho.

Mancini won three consecutive Serie A titles, the Coppa Italia twice and the Supercoppa Italiana twice, yet failed to win in Europe, which is where Moratti found him wanting.

Moratti was vindicated when, under Mourinho, Inter won the Champions League in 2010.  In fact, the Portuguese coach led the team to an unprecedented treble that season, winning Serie A and the Coppa Italia as well.

The fourth son of industrialist Angelo, who founded Saras, Moratti was born in the family villa in Bosco Chiesanuova. He graduated from Libera Università Internazionale degli Studi Sociali Guido Carli with a master's degree in political science.

On his father's death in 1981, he inherited his shares in the Saras Group, whose main business is the refining of petroleum.

Moratti is also the owner of Sarlux, based in Cagliari, which focuses on the production of electricity from waste oil. He has another company involved in generating electricity from alternative sources such as wind energy.

Members of the Inter team that won the Scudetto five
times between 2006 and 2011

In fact, he is married to the environmental activist Emilia Moratti (née Bossi), with whom he has have five children. Moratti is a United Nations Goodwill Ambassador.

As Inter chairman he had a long-time rivalry with SilvioBerlusconi, the owner of AC Milan, which even extended to him supporting the left-wing candidate Giuliano Pisapia in a bid to oust his sister-in-law, Letizia, as Mayor of Milan.

Letizia had served in Berlusconi’s Forza Italia government as Minister of Education between 2001 and 2006 and was elected Mayor of Milan in 2006 under the flag of another of Berlusconi’s parties, the centre-right alliance Casa della Libertà (House of Freedoms).

In May 2011, however, Moratti put his weight behind the former communist Pisapia, who emerged as a surprise winner.

Moratti scaled back his interest in Internazionale in November 2013, when International Sports Capital took control of 70 per cent of the club. Indonesian businessman Erick Thohir, a part-owner of that company, was elected chairman, with Moratti in the role of honorary chairman.

In June 2016, he sold the remainder of his stake in the club to Thohir's Nusantara Sports Ventures HK Limited for €60 million. Thohir then resold those shares to Zhang Jindong's Suning Holdings Group.

The family connection remained through Moratti's wife, Emilia, who had a place on the club’s advisory board, but Massimo Moratti himself ceased to be involved.

The Piazza Chiesa in Bosco Chiesanuova

Travel tip:

Bosco Chiesanuova, part of a picturesque area known as Lessinia, offers visitors a range of outdoor activities from summertime nature walks and horse riding to skiing and ince skating in the winter months. The town’s beautiful squares are notable for balconies overflowing with geraniums and roof-tops groaning under the weight of snow, depending on the season. In the attractive Piazza Chiesa is the beautiful church of San Benedetto and San Tommaso Apostolo.

Pula in Sardinia has many Roman ruins such as this arch
in the centre of the town

Travel tip:

The Sarroch refinery in Sardinia is close to Pula, about 25km (15 miles) south of Cagliari, which is renowned as ‘the prettiest town in southern Sardinia’, famous for relaxing beaches and a spectacular coastline, but also for its history.  The beach at nearby Nora has a Roman amphitheatre right by the sea, which stages concerts during the summer. Another beach, at Porto d’Agumo, is guarded by two Spanish watchtowers. The town fans out from a beautiful central piazza full of interesting restaurants, gelateria and bars.

More reading:

Internazionale - birth of a football superpower

How Roberto Mancini coached Inter to a record three consecutive Serie A titles

Luigi Riva - the prolific striker who slipped through Inter's net

Also on this day:

1974: The birth of singer-songwriter Laura Pausini


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Karl Zuegg - jam and juice maker

Businessman turned family farm into international company

Karl Zuegg

Karl Zuegg, the businessman who turned his family's fruit-farming expertise into one of Italy's major producers of jams and juices, was born on this day in 1915 in Lana, a town in what is now the autonomous province of Bolzano in Trentino-Alto Adige.

His grandparents, Maria and Ernst August Zuech - they changed their name to Zuegg in 1903 - had been cultivating fruit on their farm since 1860, when Lana was part of South Tyrol in what was then Austria-Hungary.  They traded at local markets and began exporting.

Zuegg and the company's other major brand names, Skipper and Fruttaviva, are among the most recognisable in the fruit products market in Italy and it is largely through Karl's hard work and enterprise.

He was managing director of the company from 1940 to 1986, during which time Zuegg became the first drinks manufacturer in Italy to make use of the ground-breaking Tetrapak packaging invented in Sweden, which allowed drinks to be sold in lightweight cardboard cartons rather than traditional glass bottles.

The family business had begun to experiment with jams in 1917 when austerity measures in Italy were biting hard and there was a need to preserve food.  Rather than throw away overripe apples, the family turned them into jam.

The Zuegg logo is well known in Italian grocery stores

Their methods were successful with other fruits too and Zuegg jams went into mass production in 1923, achieving immediate success.

But it was not until Karl joined the board of the company in 1937 that the business began to expand on a large scale.

Under Karl's leadership, the Zuegg brand grew, with bigger production facilities and innovative technology. The company developed new products such as the Fruttino snack bar, a solid stick of quince jam enriched with vitamins that became a staple of children's school lunches throughout Italy.

The first Zuegg fruit juices arrived in 1954, with bottles of pear, peach and apricot juice soon becoming familiar items on the shelves of Italian grocery stores.

Fruit cultivation is an important part of Lana's economy

In the early 1960s, Zuegg intoduced the Fruttaviva jams, the first to be produced without the use of preservatives and dyes, and two years later, after opening a new plant in Verona - now the company's headquarters - became a supplier of fruit products for use in yogurt, pastries and ice cream.

It was in 1979, as Karl continually looked for innovations that would help grow the business further, that the company signed a deal for the Swedish company Tetrapak to supply its revolutionary cartons for Zuegg products.

Tetrapak's unique method, combining paper, polyethylene and aluminium, produced a lightweight packaging that not only kept fluids from leaking outwards. It also prevented bacteria from entering the product and, through the aluminium layer, protected the contents from deteriorating through exposure to light.

Selling drinks in these so-called 'briks' was a novelty in Italy and Karl Zuegg's vision made his company the market leader. Today, of course, such packaging is standard.

The original Zuegg headquarters in Lana

On the back of this success, Zuegg was able to open another Italian production plant at Luogosano, in the province of Avellino in Campania, in 1985.  Three years later, the Skipper line, selling 100 per cent pure fruit juices, was launched.

Today, Zuegg is an international company with six plants - two in Italy, two in Germany, one in France and one in Russia - and employs more than 500 staff.

As part of its campaign to promote healthy living, the company has a long history of sponsorship in sport, which has seen it provide financial backing for competitors in skiing and snowboarding, beach volleyball, basketball and tennis, and for two seasons promoted the brand as a main sponsor of Internazionale football club.

Karl Zuegg, who was made Cavaliere del Lavoro by the Italian government in recognition of his services to industry, died in 2005 in Lana, his home town, at the age of 91.  He is buried at the church of Santa Maria Assunta in Lana di Sotto.

Travel tip:

Lana is a small town and resort in the Adige valley in north-eastern Italy midway between Bolzano and Merano in the area of the Trentino-Alto Adige region also known as South Tyrol. The German influence on the area is so dominant that more than 90 per cent of the town's 12,000 residents speak German as their first language, and less than eight per cent Italian. It is popular with hikers and cyclists in the summer months, with a network of well defined cycle paths.  Lana is also home to the South Tyrol Museum of Fruit, which details the history of fruit cultivation in the area.

Hotels in Lana from Hotels.com

The Roman Porta Borsari in Verona is almost 2,000 years old 

Travel tip:

Verona is famous for the Arena, the Roman amphitheatre that stages open air concerts, and for Casa Giulietta, the house with the balcony said to be the one that featured in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.  But there is more to the city's attractions.  In addition to the Arena, Verona is said to have more Roman ruins than any other Italian city and many are part of the everyday fabric of the city, including the Porta Borsari, with its two large arches and numerous smaller arches above, dating back to the 1st century, which straddles the entrance to Corso Porta Borsari, one of the city's main shopping streets.  There are many squares, including the charming Piazza dei Signori, which is surrounded by several fine buildings, including the Palazzo del Comune, the Palazzo Domus Nova and the Loggia del Consiglio.

More reading:

How Michele Ferrero's hazelnut spread became a worldwide phenomenon

Francesco Cirio and the canning revolution

A hotel empire that started with a single London coffee bar

Also on this day:

1940: The birth of F1 motor racing champion Mario Andretti

1942: The birth of record-breaking goalkeeper Dino Zoff

(Picture credits: Tractor in orchard by böhringer friedrich; Porta Borsari by Didier Descouens via Wikimedia Commons; Zuegg pictures from Zuegg company website)


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