Giovanni Verga - writer

Sicilian remembered as one of Italy’s greatest novelists

Giovanni Verga wrote short stories 
and novels from an early age

The writer Giovanni Verga, regarded by some as the greatest Italian novelist after Alessandro Manzoni, was born on this day in 1840 in the Catania area of southeast Sicily.

Verga wrote romantic and historical novels in the early part of his career but later shifted his focus to what became known as verismo, a style rooted in stark realism, focused on unvarnished depictions of rural and working‑class life.

His major works include the novels I Malavoglia (1881) and Mastro-don Gesualdo (1889), which have come to be seen as his masterpieces, and his short story collections Vita dei campi (1880) and Novelle rusticane (1883). 

The opera composer Pietro Mascagni can be given some credit for introducing Verga’s work to wider audiences. His most famous composition, Cavalleria rusticana, which premiered in 1890, was based on a short story and play by Verga of the same name, written 10 years earlier.

Verga grew up as part of a bourgeois family with noble origins, whose forebears are thought to have arrived in Sicily from Aragon, in Spain. Though the family home was in Catania, where his birth was registered, some sources say he was born in a house in Vizzini, a hilltop town 60km (36 miles) south of Catania, others that he was born on a country estate in nearby Tiepidi, perhaps because the family relocated there during a cholera outbreak. 

Verga began writing in his teens and continued while ostensibly studying law at the University of Catania. His early works, such as Amore e Patria (Love and Homeland), I carbonari della montagna (The Carbonari of the Mountain) and Sulle lagune (On the Lagoons) had historical, patriotic themes.

At the time of Italian Unification, in 1860-61, Verga served with the Catania National Guard, which was charged with keeping order following Giuseppe Garibaldi’s conquest of Sicily. Several times between 1860 and 1864, this service required him to visit Florence.

During one extended stay in the Tuscan capital he wrote Una peccatrice (translated into English as A Mortal Sin), which was much different from his previous work in that its subject matter was a passionate romance. After settling in Florence, where he wrote Storia di una capinera - translated as The Sparrow - a novel about the plight of a girl forced by circumstance to become a nun, he began to be influenced by the Scapigliatura movement.

A 1907 edition of Verga's 
acclaimed I Malavoglia

The Scapigliatura - which literally translates as ‘dishevelment’ - were a somewhat bohemian, anti‑establishment artistic group based primarily in Milan from the late 1850s to the 1870s. Its writers were generally young and disillusioned, yet cosmopolitan, and determined to break with the polite, patriotic literature of post‑Unification Italy.

The movement’s rejection of romantic idealisation, its fascination with the darker edges of modern life, and its stylistic experimentation played a key part in Verga’s transition to verismo.

His 1873 novel Eva, in which the rejection of romanticism is a central theme, provided an early manifestation of this shift in style, which gained pace after he moved to Milan and became part of the city’s literary circle, fully embracing Scapagliato themes in his next two novels Tigre reale (The Royal Tigress) and Eros.

The evolution of Verga’s writing into the starker verismo that became his hallmark followed the arrival in Milan - by then the home of most of Italy’s major newspapers and publishing houses - of his close friend, Luigi Capuana, another Sicilian writer.  They were both deeply impressed by L'Assommoir - The Drinking Den - which is regarded as one of the finest works of Émile Zola, a major figure in the Naturalism movement in French literature.

This became the inspiration for the verismo movement, which they set out to create in order to fill a gap they perceived in Italian literature.

Encouraged by the reception for his short stories, exploring the verismo themes of poverty, fatalism, family duty, social immobility, honour codes, and the harsh economics of survival, often set in the fishing villages and rural communities of his native Sicily, Verga wrote I Malavoglia - published in English as The House by the Medlar Tree - and Mastro-don Gesualdo to great critical acclaim, even though the financial returns were modest. 

Verga is commemorated in many ways in Catania,
including this bust in the Giardino Bellini

He had planned that they would be the first two in a cycle of five novels - to be entitled I vinti (The Vanquished) - but no more were written.

This was probably for a variety of reasons. The first two novels had been enormously demanding projects, draining his creativity. He also became highly critical of his own prose, rewriting extensively but sometimes abandoning entire drafts.  He found writing for the theatre more rewarding financially, although he endured a long dispute with Mascagni over royalties from Cavalleria rusticana.

In any case, his income from family properties in Sicily provided him with a comfortable lifestyle. The management of these properties also took up time.

After spending decades in Milan, Verga increasingly retreated to Catania and his family estate. Never married, he became a public figure locally - a respected gentleman, landowner, and cultural authority, who was eventually named a Senator of the Kingdom of Italy - but his national literary engagement dwindled. New movements emerged, leaving verismo behind.

Moreover, by the second decade of the new century, he was elderly and ill. His last years were spent almost entirely in Catania, with no major writing projects. He died there in January, 1922.

If Verga’s ambitions remained unfulfilled, he left a deep influence on Italian literature. His work is still part of the curriculum in Italian schools. He sits alongside Luigi Pirandello and Leonardo Sciascia as part of the great triumvirate of Sicilian literature.

His legacy can also be seen in the neorealism movement that revived Italian cinema in the postwar years, in particular in the films of Luchino Visconti, who often drew on Verga’s themes. Visconti’s second major feature, his 1948 film La terra trema (The Earth Trembles) was an adaptation, if a loose one, of I Malavoglia.

The Verga family home in
Catania now houses a museum

Travel tip:

The Verga family home at Via Sant'Anna 8 in Catania is now given over in part to the Casa Museo Giovanni Verga, a literary museum dedicated to preserving Giovanni Verga’s memory. The museum occupies the second floor of a late 18th century palazzo, which was declared a national monument in 1940. The preserved living spaces still retain the original furnishings. The writer's library, in his private study, consists of more than 2,600 volumes. Copies of Verga's manuscripts are exhibited inside the display cases, while the originals are kept in the library of the University of Catania. A lectern stands in front of the large window in the living room, at which Verga would write his poems and essays observing the daily life of people who passed by on Via Sant'Anna. Paintings, prints and engravings by artists who were friends of Verga adorn the walls. A collection of photographs, mainly of family and friends, taken by Verga himself was discovered at the house shortly after his death. Via Sant’Anna one of several streets linking Via Vittorio Emanuele II with the parallel Via Giuseppe Garibaldi, just a five-minute walk from Catania’s duomo, the Basilica Cattedrale di Sant’Agata.

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Luchino Visconti's 1948 film La
terra trema was filmed in Aci Trezza

Travel tip:

Aci Trezza, a picturesque fishing village on the Ionian coast, located about 15km (9 miles) north of Catania, was immortalised as the setting for his masterpiece novel I Malavoglia, which revolved around the struggles of the Toscano fishing family. A local museum, Casa del Nespolo, housed in a traditional 19th-century house, features memorabilia, photographs, and exhibits dedicated to Verga's work.  Luchino Visconti filmed La terra trema,  his 1948 neo-realist cinematic adaptation of Verga's novel, on location in Aci Trezza, with some local residents in the cast. Off the coast, jagged dark basalt sea stacks known as i faraglioni rise straight out of the water. Greek mythology holds that these massive volcanic rocks were hurled at Odysseus by the blinded giant Polyphemus as the hero escaped. Isola Lachea, another large offshore rock, functions as a protected nature reserve rich in local marine and plant species. Other attractions include the  Baroque architecture of the church of San Giovanni Battista and the Norman Castle, standing tall above the village, which also offers a vantage point from which to watch the annual Vele dei Malavoglia regatta. 

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More reading:

Alessandro Manzoni, the writer credited with Italy’s greatest novel 

How Leonardo Sciascia mercilessly exposed Mafia links with Italian politics

Luigi Capuana, a leading figure in the verismo movement

Also on this day:

1753: The birth of Marie Josephine of Savoy

1898: The birth of baker and chocolatier Pietro Ferrero

1938: The birth of actor Giuliano Gemma

1964: The birth of businessman and coffee-maker Andrea Illy

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Francesco Berni - poet

The short turbulent life of a witty satirist   

Francesco Berni depicted in a
18th century drawing 

Tuscan writer Francesco Berni, whose satirical verses poked fun at two Popes and one of his contemporary Italian poets, died on this day in 1535 in Florence.

Berni became known for his distinctive style of burlesque writing, which imitated serious literary forms in a humorous way. This technique became known as ‘bernesco’ and was a device later used by many other poets.

Some people believed his death, when he was in his thirties, was due to having been poisoned in revenge for refusing to take part in a plot to kill either Ippolito de’ Medici or an Italian Cardinal named Giovanni Salviati, but this is not certain.

Berni was born in either 1497 or 1498 in Lamporecchio in Tuscany. His father, Niccoló, who was a doctor, came from an established Florentine family, but he was poor. Berni spent his early years living in Florence and, when he was about 20, he entered the service of Cardinal Bernardo Bibbiena and his nephew, Angelo Dovizi, and moved to Rome with them.

At the time of the election of Pope Adrian VI, Berni circulated some witty verses that may have caused offence and he then found himself having to leave the capital city for a while and moved to live in Abruzzo. He returned in 1523 and accepted a post as a clerk, or a secretary, to Gian Matteo Giberti, who had an important role as datary to Pope Clement VII, which was a powerful post, responsible for processing official documents, granting dispensations and conferring benefices.

However, Berni found his duties working for Giberti irritating but, in the meantime, earned himself some celebrity because of his inventive satirical poetry. In about 1530, he was able to relinquish his post to concentrate on his writing, having obtained a canonry in Florence Cathedral, an office that relieved his precarious financial situation.

The writer’s Tuscan translation of Orlando Innamorato, a work that had been composed by the Renaissance author Matteo Maria Boiardo, went on to eclipse the original version, as it was preferred by many readers. The original had been written in the less popular Ferrarese dialect, making it more difficult for a lot of people to read. 

Pope Clement VII was one of Berni's
targets for his satirical verse

Berni’s play La Catrina, which was described as a lively, rustic farce, was also highly regarded at the time, but Berni was to become more well-known for his burlesque poetry.

Some of his output is regarded as savagely satirical, such as his verses attacking his fellow Tuscan poet, Pietro Aretino, and those aimed at the Popes, Adrian VI and Clement VII. 

However, some of his most popular work, which was written in the style of Petrarchan verse, was inspired by relatively unimportant, everyday subjects, such as a poem he wrote mocking his friend’s shorn beard.

Sadly, Berni died, at the age of about 38. After his death, a story circulated that he had been poisoned by Duke Alessandro de’ Medici for having refused to poison the Duke’s cousin, Ippolito de’ Medici, but this has never been proved one way or the other. It was also claimed in a letter written at the time that Berni died from ingesting the poison that he had refused to administer to Cardinal Giovanni Salviati, a Florentine diplomat.

Whether either story is true or not, it is thought more likely that Berni’s mysterious death occurred as a result of being caught up in the political intrigues going on at the time among the Medici, rather than because he had seriously offended any of the targets of his satirical verses. 

Berni’s acclaimed translation and revision of Boiardo’s Orlando Innamorato has also provided scholars with a clue about his own opinions about religion. In one of his poetic introductions to a canto, he revealed that he was favourably disposed toward the new Reformation principles being introduced in Italy at the time, which may explain the bitterness of some of his remarks in the satirical verses that he had written about the Church.

Several streets in Italian cities have been named after the poet. You can find a Via Francesco Berni in Florence, Empoli, Pietrasanta, Varese, and Verona.

Packets of brigidini, Lamporecchio's speciality
wafer biscuits, on sale at a market

Travel tip:

Lamporecchio, where Francesco Berni was born, is a comune - municipality - in the province of Pistoia in Tuscany. It is about 13km (eight miles) south of Pistoia. The town is known for the invention of brigidini, which are thin, anise-flavoured wafers, and the berlingozzo, a cake typically eaten during the Carnival. The noble Rospigliosi family, of which Pope Clement IX was a member, has its roots in Lamporecchio. With a population of around 7,500,  Lamporecchio is located in the Valdinievole, a valley that extends between Pistoia and Lucca, in an area halfway between the Fucecchio Marsh and the hills of Montalbano, which are planted with vineyards and olive trees. Halfway along the valley - and a good base for visiting the area - is the town of Montecatini Terme, famous for its thermal baths that can be enjoyed in the town’s Liberty-style spa resorts.

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Brunelleschi's colossal dome of the Cattedrale di
Santa Maria del Fiore dominates the skyline

Travel tip:

Berni achieved financial security and was able to concentrate on his poetry after 1530 when he obtained a canonry at Florence Cathedral. Otherwise known as Santa Maria del Fiore, or the Duomo of Florence, the cathedral dominates the city skyline with its immense, brick-built dome designed by the Florentine Renaissance architect Filippo Brunelleschi. It was built without scaffolding and given an inner shell to provide a platform for the timbers that support the outer shell. The architect died in 1446 before it was completed, but a statue of Brunelleschi was erected in Piazza del Duomo. The dome was his greatest achievement, and would forever define the city of Florence. It remains, to this day, the largest masonry dome in the world.

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More reading:

How satirist Giuseppe Parini mocked the aristocracy of 18th century Milan

Why Pietro Aretino was both admired and feared by the nobility

Ludovico Ariosto, Renaissance author of the epic poem, Orlando Furioso

Also on this day:

1805: Napoleon Bonaparte was declared King of Italy

1955: The death of racing driver Alberto Ascari

1977: The birth of footballer Luca Toni

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Corrado Augias - author, journalist and presenter

TV personality has devoted his life to writing

Corrado Augias has enjoyed a long career
as a writer, journalist and TV presenter

Veteran journalist and TV presenter Corrado Augias, who is also a best-selling author, was born on this day in Rome in 1935. He has become popular in Italy as the host of many TV programmes, including those featuring mysteries and crimes from the past, such as Telefono Giallo and Enigma.

Augias is a prolific writer, his works ranging from crime novels set in the early 20th century, to a series of books about the hidden secrets of Italian and European cities, as well as religious works, and plays.

He was brought up in Rome as part of a family originally from Toulon in France, although his father’s family were of Sardinian ancestry. After studying at Sapienza University in Rome he became a journalist working for L’Espresso, La Repubblica and Panorama. He also worked as a foreign correspondent in Paris and New York for several years.

In the 1960s, Augias became involved with the Roman avante garde movement and wrote plays for the theatre. More recently, he wrote a play, L’onesto Jago, for the Teatro Stabile di Genova.

His early crime novels for the Rizzoli publishing house, feature the protagonist Commissario Giovanni Sperelli, an imaginary brother of Andrea Sperelli, who was a character in Piacere, a novel by Gabriele D’Annunzio.

The first novel in a trilogy, Quel treno da Vienna - That Train from Vienna -  published in 1981, was set in Rome in 1911, when the capital was about to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Kingdom of Italy.

It was the first of three novels featuring Sperelli, a Commissario of Public Security, and was followed by Il fazzoletto azzuro - The Blue Handkerchief - which was set in Rome in 1915, when Italy was about to enter World War I, and L’ultima primavera - The Last Spring - which begins just before the March on Rome by Mussolini’s Fascists in 1922.

Three films based on these novels were later made for television and shown on Rai, Italy’s national television network.

Augias is well known for his popular series of books, ‘I Segreti di….’, which covers many Italian and European cities, in which he unveils their peculiar features. His 2010 publication of I Segreti del Vaticano focused on issues of power in the Vatican state.

I segreti di Roma has been one
of Augias's most popular books

An atheist, Augias wrote Inchiesta su Gesù, looking at the Gospel’s description of the life of Jesus. This book became a bestseller in Italy.

However, it provoked two other Italian authors to write another book in reply, Risposta a Inchiesta su Gesù, which claimed to offer informed and constructive defence, explanation, and justification for what was written in the Gospel about Jesus.

Augias is married to the journalist and writer Daniela Pasti and he collaborated with her to write Newspapers and Spies, a book about secret societies and corrupt journalists during the Great War.

In 2023, Augias left Rai to go to the commercial channel LA7 to host La Torre di Babele, an in-depth, cultural television programme.

Now in his 90s, he continues to write novels and non-fiction books and his recent autobiographical book, La vita s’impara, about his adventurous life and what he has learnt, was published in 2024.

Between 1994 and 1999 Augias served in the European Parliament as MEP for Southern Italy. He was awarded The Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic in 2006.

A year later he was awarded the Knight (Chevalier) of the Legion of Honour by France, but he renounced the honour in 2020 when the same award was given to Egyptian president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

The Calling of St Matthew is the first work
in Caravaggio's Cappella Contarelli cycle

Travel tip:

The book for which Corrado Augias is perhaps best known, I segreti di Roma (The Secrets of Rome), includes discourse about the great Renaissance painter, Caravaggio, who spent much of his working life in Rome and left a legacy of outstanding work, some of which is on public view in churches around the city. These include the church of San Luigi dei Francesi, a short distance from Piazza Navona, where the Cappella Contarelli includes a cycle of Caravaggio paintings on the theme of Saint Matthew - The Calling of Saint Matthew, The Martyrdom of Saint Matthew, and The Inspiration of Saint Matthew. Augias believes the content of each, with many of the figures portrayed inspired by the ordinary Romans the painter would encounter in his daily life, perfectly illustrates the contradictions found in Rome, where piety co-exists with vice, poverty with power, light with shadow.  The paintings, completed between 1599 and 1602, were Caravaggio's first major public commission and one that cemented his reputation as a master artist. The church of San Luigi dei Francesi, which was designed by Giacomo della Porta and built by Domenico Fontana between 1518 and 1589, is dedicated to the patron saints of France: Virgin Mary, Denis of Paris, and King Louis IX of France. The chapel commemorates the French cardinal, Matthieu Cointerel.

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The present day campus of Sapienza University,
designed in the 1930s by Marcello Piacentini

Travel tip:

The University of Rome, where Corrado Augias studied, is often referred to as the Sapienza University of Rome or simply La Sapienza, meaning 'knowledge'. It was founded in 1303 by Pope Boniface VIII, as a place for  ecclesiastical studies over which he could exert greater control than the already established universities of Bologna and Padua. The first pontifical university, it expanded in the 15th century to include schools of Law, Medicine, Philosophy and Theology. Money raised from a new tax on wine enabled the University to buy a palace, which later housed the Sant'Ivo alla Sapienza church. The University was closed during the sack of Rome in 1527 but reopened by Pope Paul III in 1534. In 1870, La Sapienza ceased to be the papal university and as the university of the capital of Italy became recognised as the country's most prestigious seat of learning. A new modern campus was built in 1935 under the guidance of the architect Marcello Piacentini.

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More reading:

Gabriele D’Annunzio and his place in Italian history

The left-leaning aristocrat who founded L’Espresso and La Repubblica

The rags-to-riches story of publisher Angelo Rizzoli

Also on this day:

1482: The first printed edition of the Hebrew Bible

1582: The birth of painter Giovanni Lanfranco

1919: The birth of footballer Valentino Mazzola

1976: The death of Franciscan friar Gabriele Allegra

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Edmondo De Amicis - writer and journalist

Author whose most famous work became a staple text in Italian schools

Edmondo De Amicis's first writing
drew on his service in the Italian Army

The writer, journalist and former soldier Edmondo De Amicis, famous as the author of Cuore, his imagined diary of a schoolboy in Turin, was born on this day in 1846 in Oneglia, now part of modern Imperia in Liguria.

Through its daily diary entries by the book’s central character, Enrico, interspersed with uplifting stories told by one of his teachers, Cuore - published for the first time in 1886 - came to be seen as something of a moral compass for young people growing up in post-unification Italy.

At a time when the newly-formed Italian State was keen to impose its authority over a Catholic Church that had vehemently opposed unification and still refused to recognise the new Kingdom of Italy, Cuore’s emphasis on values such as patriotism, compassion, diligence, and respect for authority, resonated deeply with the new secular government, reflecting exactly the moral and civic ideals it wished to be at the heart of society.

It became a staple in Italian public schools, remaining so for the best part of a century. Moreover, its appeal extended well beyond the borders of the fledgling Italian nation and was adapted and translated into at least 25 languages, earning De Amicis international acclaim.

Although Cuore - Heart - was by some way the biggest success of his literary career, De Amicis also won praise for the travel books he wrote while working as a foreign correspondent for the Rome newspaper La Nazione. 

One of these - Constantinople (1877) - was seen as the best description of the Turkish city now known as Istanbul to be published in the 19th century. A new edition of the book was published in 2005.

In addition to Cuore, De Amicis, who was a member of Italy’s Chamber of Deputies for the Italian Socialist Party between 1906 and his death in 1908, wrote a number of later novels that reflected his interest in such matters as social reform, education, and workers’ rights.

De Amicis himself had been born into a wealthy family. His father, Francescso, was a royal banker in the salt and tobacco sector. His original home in Oneglia and the one to which the family moved in Cuneo, Piedmont, when he was two years old, were both spacious and elegant properties.

Cuore became staple reading for
generations of Italian schoolchildren

Growing up in Cuneo, he initially looked destined for a military career. After studying at the Candellero military college in Turin, he enrolled at the Military Academy of Modena at age 16, graduating with the rank of second lieutenant.

This experience, shaped as it was by Italy’s turbulent path towards unification, profoundly influenced his destiny. As an officer in the Royal Italian Army, he participated in the Third War of Independence and fought in the Battle of Custoza in 1866. Italy’s defeat by Austria left De Amicis deeply disillusioned, leading him to resign from military service and turn to writing.

At first, it was as a military journalist, moving to Florence to edit L'Italia militare, the official publication, for whom he wrote military sketches, later collected in a book entitled La vita militare - Military Life. His vivid portrayals of army life were well received and became the launch pad for his new career. 

De Amicis soon became a news journalist and travel writer, journeying across Europe, North Africa, and the Near East. Travel books such as Spagna (1873), Olanda (1874), and the aforementioned Costantinopoli (1878) were celebrated for their rich descriptions and cultural insights, blending reportage with literary flair.

It was Cuore, however, that was the turning point of his literary life. Its themes promoted a strong sense of national identity, emphasising loyalty to Italy, respect for its institutions and admiration for its heroes, especially those who made the ultimate sacrifice on the battlefield. 

The stories told by young Enrico’s teacher, meanwhile, taught virtues such as honesty, courage, humility and compassion, while often featuring children from different regions of Italy, reinforcing unity through shared values.

De Amicis entered Italian politics
towards the end of his life

The book caused some controversy, too, by making no reference to religion. The nuns, priests or other religious mentors that featured in other moral tales were conspicuous by their absence. This upset the Catholic Church, already reeling from the capture of the Papal States and Rome in 1870, which completed unification and reduced the pope to a mere spiritual leader, having previously been effectively the monarch of his domain.

De Amicis ultimately returned to Piedmont, with homes in Turin and Pinerolo. It was the school life of his sons Furio and Ugo, students at the Boncompagni Elementary School in Turin, that inspired him to write Cuore. 

His last years were overshadowed by sadness, at the death of his mother, his fractious relationship with his wife and ultimately the suicide of Furio, his eldest son. It prompted him to leave Turin soon after the turn of the century, thereafter leading a nomadic existence that included time in Florence and Catania, in Sicily.

He died during a stay in Bordighera, in Liguria, where he suffered a cerebral haemorrhage while resident at the then Hotel Regina, which he had chosen as his base because George MacDonald, a Scottish poet he admired, had lived there a few years earlier. The building, at Via Vittorio Veneto 34, has commemorative plaques to them both. 

De Amicis was laid to rest in the family tomb, in the monumental cemetery of Turin.

Piazza Dante is a the central square in the part 
of Imperia that makes up the former Oneglia

Travel tip:

Oneglia, where De Amicis was born, was a town about 120km (75 miles) from Genoa along the western coast of Liguria. It was joined to Porto Maurizio in 1923 by Fascist ruler Benito Mussolini to form the municipality known as Imperia. The area has become well known for cultivating flowers and olives and there is a Museum of the Olive in the part of the city that used to be Oneglia. One of Italy’s most famous olive oil producers and connoisseurs, Filippo Berio, was born in Oneglia in 1829.  The Porto Maurizio area is characterised by steep, narrow streets and loggias with an elevated position offering views across the Ligurian Sea, while the Oneglia part of Imperia is on the whole a modern town, one exception being the streets behind the Calata Cuneo in the port area. Today, Imperia is part industrial port and part tourist resort.  What used to be Oneglia is at the eastern end of Imperia, around Piazza Dante, which is at the centre of a long shopping street, Via Aurelia.

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Picturesque side streets are part
of the charm of Bordighera

Travel tip:

Bordighera, where De Amicis died, is a small, picturesque town on Italy’s western Riviera, just 20km (12 miles) from Italy’s border with France. It is famous for its flower industry and was a popular holiday destination for the British during Queen Victoria’s reign. Being situated where the Maritime Alps meet the sea, it enjoys the benefit of a climate that invariably produces mild winters. It was the first town in Europe to grow date palms. Its seafront road, the Lungomare Argentina - named in honour of a visit to the town by Evita Peron in 1947 - is 2.3km (1.4 miles) long and is said to be the longest promenade on the Italian Riviera. Queen Margherita of Savoy - wife of Umberto I - had a winter palace, Villa Margherita, in the town.  Bordighera was the scene of a meeting in 1941 between Italy’s Fascist leader, Benito Mussolini, and his Spanish counterpart, Francisco Franco, to discuss Spain’s entry to World War Two on the side of Italy and Germany, although in the end Spain remained nominally neutral.

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More reading:

Maria Montessori and the launch of what became a worldwide network of schools

How the first free public school in Europe opened in Frascati, just outside Rome

A soldier-turned-writer who fought alongside unification hero Garibaldi

Also on this day:

1581: The birth of Baroque master Domenichino 

1898: The birth of Prince Amedeo, Duke of Aosta

1928: The birth of anarchist Giuseppe Pinelli, inspiration for Dario Fo play

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Stefano D’Arrigo – writer

Author’s greatest work took him 17 years to complete

Stefano d'Arrigo wrote a novel
considered a literary masterpiece

The Sicilian poet, writer, and art critic Stefano D’Arrigo, who once made a small appearance in a Pier Paolo Pasolini film, was born Fortunato Stefano D’Arrigo on this day in 1919 in Alì Terme, a comune of Messina.

He became famous for his novel, Horcynus Orca (Killer Whale) which was published in 1975 and was considered a masterpiece of 20th century Italian literature.

The action in the book takes place in the aftermath of World War II and follows the journey of a Sicilian fisherman as he returns home to his village after serving in the Italian Navy during the war.

The reader experiences the fisherman’s encounters with the transformed landscape and people and sees through his eyes the impact of war on the traditional ways of life in Sicily.

D’Arrigo left Alì Terme after completing elementary school when he was ten years old. He moved with his family to Milazzo, a municipality of Messina.

When war broke out, he attended the officer cadet course in Udine in the region of  Friuli-Venezia Giulia and was then assigned to Palermo. In the summer of 1943, he was transferred to Messina where he witnessed the clashes on the Strait of Messina between the Germans and the Allies.

While D’Arrigo was still serving in the army he graduated in Messina with a thesis on the German poet Friedrich Holderlin.

D’Arrigo moved to Rome in 1946 to work for newspapers such as La Tribuna del Popolo, Il Progresso d'Italia, and Il Giornale di Sicilia. As a newspaper writer and art critic he mixed with painters and sculptors in Rome and began writing poetry. He also met his future wife, Jutta Bruto, and married her in 1948.

A collection of 17 of his poems, Codice Siciliano, was first published in 1957, but was republished with additions by Mondadori in 1975.

D'Arrigo's 1257-page epic sold some
80,000 copies when published in 1975

D’Arrigo worked on Horcynus Orca from 1957 to 1975. The novel was 1257 pages long and, on its release, it immediately sold 80,000 copies. Subsequent paperback editions sold another 45,000 copies.

It addressed the theme of the wandering hero that has been present in literature from Homer’s Odyssey to James Joyce’s Ulysses. The novel also put such a focus on the culture and literature of the sea that some scientists suggested D’Arrigo should be awarded an honorary degree in oceanography.

His epic work took so long for him to finish that the title was changed along the way. Later, a first version was made available to readers under the earlier title, I fatti della fera, which was a shorter book but contained more of the writer’s original ‘Sicilianisms’.

D’Arrigo also wrote three other novels and a theatre script and he played the part of an examining magistrate in the 1961 film, Accatone, which was written and directed by Pier Paolo Pasolino.

Stefano D’Arrigo died in Rome in May 1992.

The coast around  Alì Terme features many long
stretches of flat, pebbly beach

Travel tip:

Alì Terme is a tranquil town on Sicily’s northeastern Ionian coast, nestled between the sea and the Peloritani Mountains, about 20km south of Messina. It is best known for its thermal springs, which have been prized since ancient times for their therapeutic properties. The sulphur-rich waters feed several spas, including the renowned Terme di Alì.  The area features long pebble beaches and a relaxed promenade ideal for swimming, sunbathing and evening strolls. The Chiesa di San Rocco is the town's main church, dedicated to its patron saint, who was adopted several centuries ago after the discovery of a statue of him in a box on the beach. San Rocco is celebrated with a procession through the town on August 16. Alì Terme, a popular base for hikers as well as sun-seekers, has a station on the Messina-Catania railway line and is easily accessible via the A18 motorway.

Stay in Alì Terme with Expedia

The Strait of Messina, at its narrowest just 3.1km
wide, separates Messina from the Italian mainland

Travel tip:

Messina is a city in the northeast of Sicily, separated from mainland Italy by the Strait of Messina. It is the third largest city on the island and is home to a large Greek-speaking community. The 12th century cathedral in Messina has a bell tower which houses one of the largest astronomical clocks in the world, built in 1933. Originally built by the Normans, the cathedral, which still contains the remains of King Conrad, ruler of Germany and Sicily in the 13th century, had to be almost entirely rebuilt following the earthquake in 1908, and again in 1943, after a fire triggered by Allied bombings. The city’s history stretches back to Greek colonists in the 8th century BC, while the Fountain of Orion in Piazza Duomo and the nearby church of the Annunziata dei Catalani reflect layers of Byzantine, Arab, and Baroque influence. As a university city, Messina has a youthful energy and many cultural events.

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More reading:

The prince whose novel became a classic of Sicilian literature

Sicily’s Nobel Prize-winning poet, known for his lyrical and existential verse

A novelist whose work focuses on Sicilian politics, Mafia influence and moral ambiguity

Also on this day:

70BC: The birth of the Roman poet Virgil

1764: The moment that inspired Edward Gibbon’s epic Roman history

1785: The birth of painter Giovanni Migliara

1905: The birth of footballer Angelo Schiavio

1964: The birth of astronaut Roberto Vittori

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Giuseppe Cesare Abba – writer and soldier

Patriotic revolutionary took notes during historic expedition with Garibaldi

Abba as a young man in the
uniform of Garibaldi's army

Giuseppe Cesare Abba, an Italian writer who volunteered to fight alongside Giuseppe Garibaldi during his campaign to unify Italy, was born on this day in 1836 in Cairo Montenotte in Liguria, which was then part of the Kingdom of Sardinia.

Abba took part in most of the battles that led to the dissolution of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and he made notes during the 1860 campaign. 

His major work, Noterelle d’Uno dei Mille was published in 1880, thanks to a recommendation by Giosuè Carducci, the Italian writer and poet who won a Nobel prize in Literature.

While attending a college in Liguria, Abba became enthusiastic about the work of patriotic romantic poets and writers such as Ugo Foscolo, Giovanni Prati, and Aleardo Aleardi. He went on to study at the Academy of Fine Arts in Genoa, but left in 1859 to voluntarily enrol in a cavalry regiment in Pinerolo, a comune - municipality - of Turin. 

The following year he moved to Parma where he joined up with Garibaldi and his volunteers.

The literary career he was to follow later was inspired by his memories of his revolutionary experiences during the campaign to unite Italy.

He left Liguria for Sicily, where he had a baptism of fire fighting in the Battle of Calatafimi.  He also played his part in the taking of Palermo and earned himself an honourable mention in the Battle of Volturno.

Afterwards, he retired to live as a civilian in Pisa and then later moved back to his native town in Liguria, where he was elected as mayor.

Abba’s first attempt at writing was a romantic poem in five canti under the title, Arrigo. Then, as a keen follower of the novelist Alessandro Manzoni, he embarked on an historical novel, Le rive della Bormida nel 1794 - The Banks of the Bormida in 1794 - which used ideas from the notes he had taken during the 1860 Spedizione dei Mille - the Expedition of the Thousand.

Abba pictured around the time his
Notorelle were published

In 1880, he used the same notes to produce Noterelle di Uno dei Mille, edite dopo vent’anni - Notes by One of the Thousand, 20 Years Later. It was only in 1891 that this work was given its final title, Da Quarto al Volturno: noterelle d’uno dei mille - From Quarto to Volturno: Notes by One of the Thousand.

Yet Abba’s magnum opus may never have been published had it not been for the support of Giosuè Carducci. One of Abba’s former revolutionary compatriots had urged him to send his manuscript to Carducci who was considering writing a book about the life of Garibaldi and had been encouraging survivors of the campaign to send him their historical testimonies.

After Carducci had read Abba’s work, he passed it on to the publishers, Zanichelli, because he regarded it so highly. He also told Abba that he might not now go ahead with his own biography of the Italian hero, Garibaldi.

Abba became famous after the publication of his Noterelle. He went on to write a Life of Nino Bixio, the soldier who helped to organise Giuseppe Garibaldi’s Expedition of the Thousand, and took part in the capture of Rome in 1870, which completed the unification process for Italy.

He also wrote a History of the Thousand and other works based on his experiences with Garibaldi, and some poetry and short stories. But none of his other books became as popular as his Noterelle.

In later life, he was appointed first teacher at the secondary school in Faenza in Emilia-Romagna and principal of the technological institute of Brescia in Lombardy. 

Abba was nominated as a senator in June 1910, but he died in Brescia in November 1910 at the age of 72 and was laid to rest in the cemetery at Cairo Montenotte. 

A commemorative plaque to Abba can be seen on a wall of the Palazzo Martinengo Colleoni di Pianezza in Corso Matteotti in Brescia, while the Italian destroyer Giuseppe Cesare Abba was named in his honour.

Porta Soprana, one of the ancient
gateways into Cairo Montenotte

Travel tip:

Cairo Montenotte, where Abba was born and is buried, is a comune in the province of Savona in Liguria, located about 50km (31 miles) west of Genoa and 20km (12 miles) northwest of Savona.  Archaeological finds indicate that Cairo Montenotte - which now has a population of around 12,500 - was inhabited in the Neolithic age and was conquered by the Romans more than 100 years before the birth of Christ. Roman artefacts and the remains of a villa from the Imperial period have been found there. The name Cairo is thought to have come from the ancient Ligurian word Carium, which is used to refer to the comune in a document from the tenth century. There is a legend that Francis of Assisi went through the town in the 13th century on his way to Spain but there is no evidence for this. King Victor Emmanuel II authorised Cairo to add Montenotte to its name in memory of a 1796 battle fought there, with a royal decree issued in 1863. Among the many interesting sites in the comune are a ruined castle and Porta Soprana, with its 15th century quadrangular tower.

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Piazza della Loggia, the elegant square at the
heart of the beautiful Lombardy city of Brescia

Travel tip:

Brescia, where Abba taught in later life and died in 1910, is the second city in Lombardy, after Milan, and has Roman remains and well-preserved Renaissance buildings.  Brescia became a Roman colony before the birth of Christ and you can still see remains from the forum, theatre, and a temple. The town was fought over by different rulers in the middle ages but came under the protection of Venice in the 15th century. There is a distinct Venetian influence in the architecture of the Piazza della Loggia, an elegant square in the centre of the town, which has a clock tower similar to the one in Saint Mark’s square in Venice. Next to the 17th century Duomo is an older cathedral, the unusually shaped Duomo Vecchio, also known as la Rotonda, which is open to the public. The Santa Giulia Museo covers more than 3,000 years of Brescia’s history, housed within the Benedictine Nunnery of San Salvatore and Santa Giulia in Via Musei. The nunnery was built over a Roman residential quarter, but some of the houses, with their original mosaics and frescoes, have now been excavated and can be seen by visitors looking round the museum.

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More reading:

The Expedition of the Thousand and what it achieved

Victory at the Battle of Calatafimi

Nino Bixio - the patriotic general who helped unite Italy

Also on this day:

1888: The birth of wartime nurse Saint Maria Bertilla Boscardin

1935: The birth of champion wrestler Bruno Sammartino

1943: The birth of football coach Ottavio Bianchi

1943: The massacre of civilians in Lanciano, Abruzzo

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Giovanni Comisso - writer

Novelist and journalist with distinctive literary voice

Giovanni Comisso spent much of his 
writing life travelling abroad

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Travel tip:

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

Hotels in Treviso from Hotels.com

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

Travel tip:

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

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Also on this day: 

The minister who persuaded Italy to switch sides in WW1

A poet who drew inspiration from the landscapes of the Veneto

How Gabriele d’Annunzio influenced Mussolini

Also on this day:

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

1858: The birth of actress Eleonora Duse

1938: The birth of world champion boxer Alessando Mazzinghi

1941: The birth of bass-baritone star Ruggero Raimondi

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