Roberto Paci Dalò – composer and film maker

Music maker coined the definition ‘media dramaturgy’

Roberto Paci Dalò has composed and directed more than
30 groundbreaking music-theatre works

The award-winning contemporary musician and composer Roberto Paci Dalò was born on this day in 1962 in Rimini.

Paci Dalò is the co-founder and director of the performing arts ensemble Giardini Pensili and has composed music for theatre, radio, television and film.

After completing musical, visual and architectural studies in Fiesole, Faenza and Ravenna, Paci Dalò focused on sound and design and their use in film, theatre and collaborative projects.

He has been a pioneer in the use of digital technologies and telecommunication systems in art and has been particularly interested in performing arts as a meeting point of languages.

Since 1985 he has written, composed and directed more than 30 groundbreaking music-theatre works which have been presented worldwide.

Roberto Paci Dalò has worked at some
of Italy's leading universities

Paci Dalò has composed music for acoustical ensembles, electronics and voices and has produced radio works for the main European broadcasting corporations.

His films and videos have been regularly presented in international festivals.

Paci Dalò taught Media Dramaturgy at the University of Siena and collaborates with institutions such as the University of Bologna, University of Rome, University of Ascoli Piceno and the Brera Fine Arts Academy in Milan, where he develops projects in collaboration with designers, architects, planners, artists, programmers and hackers.

He coined the term ‘media dramaturgy’ - an extension of the study of composition of drama and adapting stories to actable form to cover not only the theatre but radio, television and film - in describing his own work.

He has been internationally acclaimed for leading the way in multimedia.

As a performer he has also developed extended techniques on the clarinet and with electronics.

Paci Dalò currently lives and works in the hills above Rimini.

The 13th century Tempio Maletestiano in Rimini has
frescoes by Piero della Francesca and works by Giotto

Travel tip:

With wide sandy beaches and plenty of hotels and restaurants, Rimini is one of the most popular seaside resorts in Europe, but it is also a historic town with many interesting things to see. The Tempio Maletestiano is a 13th century Gothic church originally built for the Fransiscans that was transformed on the outside in the 15th century and decorated inside with frescoes by Piero della Francesca and works by Giotto and many other artists. In 1993 Paci Dalò conceived the project Publiphono for his native town, using the public address system of the beach at Rimini to create environmental audio performances along 15km (9 miles) of the coast.

The Piazza della Libertà in the centre of Faenza, the city
in Emilia Romagna where Paci Dalò studied

Travel tip:

Paci Dalò studied at Faenza, a city about 72km (45 miles) kilometres northwest of Rimini, which is famous for the manufacture of a type of decorative majolica-ware known as faience. It is also home to the International Museum of Ceramics, which has examples of ceramics from ancient times, the Middle Ages and the 18th and 19th centuries as well as displaying work by important contemporary artists. The museum is in Viale Baccarini in Faenza. For more information visit www.micfaenza.org

More reading:

The unique style of contemporary composer Ludovico Einaudi

The Futurist artist who invented 'noise music'

How Luigi Nono used avant-garde music as a means of political expression

Also on this day:

98AD: Trajan becomes Roman Emperor

1901: The death of Giuseppe Verdi

1927: The birth of novelist Giovanni Arpino


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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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Gerry Scotti - television show host

One-time politician who presented Chi vuol essere milionario?

Gerry Scotti

Gerry Scotti, the host of Italy’s equivalent of Who Wants to be a Millionaire? and one of the most familiar faces on Italian television, was born on this day in 1956 in Camporinaldo, an agricultural village in Lombardy.

The presenter, whose career in television began in the 1980s, was also a member of the Italian Chamber of Deputies between 1987 and 1992, having won the Lombardy 1 district in the Milan college for Bettino Craxi’s Italian Socialist Party.

But he is best known as the face of Chi vuol essere milionario?, which he fronted when it launched in Italy in 2000 and continued in the role after Italy’s entry into the single currency in 2002 required the show to make a subtle change of name.

Originally Chi vuol essere miliardario – billionaire – the title was changed to milionario – millionaire – with a new top prize of 1,000,000 euro replacing the 1,000,000,000 lire of the original.

Scotti continued to host the show until it aired for the last time in Italy in 2011, at which time he held a Guinness World Record for the number of editions presented of the show, which was created for the British network ITV in 1998 and was subsequently exported to 160 countries worldwide.

The son of a printworker at Corriere della Sera in Milan, Scotti – whose real first name is Virginio - studied law at university but dropped out to pursue a career as a radio DJ, working for a number of stations in Milan before being hired as a launch presenter for Radio Deejay, a national network based in Milan.

Scotti is nicknamed Uncle Gerry by his fans

He fronted Deejay Television, the first music video programme on Italian television, before moving into full-time TV work with the commercial Mediaset networks, working mainly for Canale 5.

Apart from Millionaire, Scotti has been the host of a number of other popular quiz shows, notably the word game Passaparola. He also fronted The Money Drop and Avanti un altro.

In the entertainment category, his credits include La sai l'ultima?, La Corrida, Paperissima and Buona Domenica. 

He also co-hosted the satirical current affairs programme, Striscia la Notizia, and has been on the judging panels of the talent shows Italia’s Got Talent and Tú sí que vales.

The winner of 10 Telegatto awards – the prize sponsored by the Italian TV listings magazine TV Sorrisi e Canzoni – and a Telegatto Platinum prize for career achievement, Scotti has presented almost 100 different TV shows, appearing in almost 600 prime time editions and more than 6,000 daytime slots.

Known as Uncle Gerry by his fans, he has also acted in around a dozen films, mainly for television, and two sitcoms. He has made commercials on behalf of around a dozen companies.

He was married for 18 years to Patrizia Grosso, with whom he has a son, 25-year-old Eduardo, and has for several years been the companion of Gabriella Perino, a divorcee who is the mother of one of Eduardo’s former schoolfriends.

In 2009, Scotti wrote a letter published in Corriere della Sera supporting a proposal that the Catholic Church soften its position towards divorce, which traditionally it does not recognise.

The Palazzo Pubblico in Piacenza dominates the
central Piazza dei Cavalli

Travel tip:

Camporinaldo is an agricultural hamlet, part of the municipality of Miradolo Terme, a small town of 3,500 people about 25km (16 miles) east of Pavia and 55km (34 miles) south-east of Milan, on the way to Piacenza, which was given its name – meaning ‘pleasant place’ – by the Romans.  Piacenza’s industrial suburbs may bely that description but its well-preserved historical centre includes an imposing Gothic town hall – the Palazzo Pubblico, which dominates the central Piazza dei Cavalli, also notable for its equestrian statues.

The elaborately carved tomb of St Augustine in the
Basilica of San Pietro in Ciel d'Oro in Pavia

Travel tip:

The city of Pavia once rivalled Milan as the regional capital and was the seat of the Kings of Lombardy for more than 200 years from 572 to 774.  It was once also known as the ‘city of 100 towers’ although only a few remain.  Among the attractions of this historic university city is the Romanesque basilica of San Pietro in Ciel d’Oro, which contains an elaborately carved ark housing the remains of St Augustine, a convert to Christianity who became one of the religion’s most influential theologians.

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Alberto Rabagliati - singer and actor

Performer found fame through radio

Alberto Rabagliati won a contest as
a Rudolph Valentino lookalike

The singer and movie actor Alberto Rabagliati, who became one of the stars of Italian radio in the 1930s and 40s, was born on this day in 1906 in Milan.

His movie career reached a peak in the post-War years, when he had roles in the Humphrey Bogart-Ava Gardner hit Barefoot Contessa and in Montecarlo, starring Marlene Dietrich.

The son of parents who had moved to Milan from the village of Casorzo, near Asti, in Piedmont, Rabagliati’s career in the entertainment business began when he entered a competition in 1927 to find a Rudolph Valentino lookalike.

To his astonishment he won.  The prize was to be taken to Hollywood to audition, so his life changed overnight.  Later he recalled his own wide-eyed incredulity as he sailed across the Atlantic, bound for a new life.  "For someone like me, who had never been beyond Lake Como or Monza Cathedral, finding myself on board a luxury steamer with three cases full of clothes, a few rolls of dollars, gran-duchesses and countesses flirting with me was something extraordinary".

He lived in America for the next four years but never achieved more than modest success and decided to return to Italy. During his time in America, however, he took the opportunity to get to know some new musical genres such as jazz, swing, and ‘scat’ singing, in which the vocalist uses his or her voice to make sounds rather than words, such as the ‘doo wah, doo wah, doo wah, doo wah’ lines repeated in It Don’t Mean a Thing if it Ain’t Got That Swing.

On coming home he was determined he would make a success as a singer and he realised his ambition in some style.

Rabagliati recording one of his radio shows in the 1940s

After joining a popular band called the Lecuona Cuban Boys, in which he performed with his face painted black, he met the songwriter Giovanni D'Anzi who arranged for him to have an audition with the Italian state radio station, EIAR, in Rome.

Rabagliati soon became a star and by 1941 had his own show, Canta Rabagliati ("Rabagliati sings"). It spurned a string of hits, including Ma l'amore no, Mattinata fiorentina, and Bambina innamorata.  He developed a huge following, mainly among women, and when he appeared on stage he would have hundreds of roses thrown at his feet.

He owned a large American car, which the Italian authorities at one time threatened to confiscate, because the Fascist regime banned all manifestations of foreign culture.

The Fascist leader Benito Mussolini, however, sensed he could use Rabagliati’s popularity to his own advantage and personally intervened to ensure the singer kept his car.  Mussolini persuaded Rabagliati to lend one of his songs to the government’s campaign to persuade Italians to buy into his vision of Fascist family life, adopting Sposi (c'è una casetta piccina) as an anthem for the campaign, celebrating newlyweds in their own "little house".

Rabagliati was lined up to work alongside
Raffaella Carrà in a new TV show

It is said that Mussolini privately despised Rabagliati’s music, with its heavy American influences, and reputedly flew into a rage one day when he discovered his mistress, Clara Petacci, listening to one of his records, dragging it off the turntable and smashing it.

Rabagliati used his fame as a singer to kick-start his film career and appeared in more than 20 films between 1940 and the mid-1960s, including Barefoot Contessa, Montecarlo, Il vedova (The Widow) and The Christmas That Almost Wasn’t, in which he played Santa Claus.

He began to act on stage too, landing many parts in musical revues and comedies.  It seemed he was about to break into television in a big way, too, making a guest appearance on a new show Milleluci, presented by Mina Mazzini and Rafaella Carrà.

He was so impressive that Mina wanted him to be on the show regularly and he was about to agree a deal on becoming a co-host in March 1974 when he collapsed and died from a cerebral haemorrhage. He was 67.

Rabagliati, who had married Maria Antonietta Tonnini in 1954, was buried at the Cimitero Flaminio in Rome, next to his mother.

The impressive Baroque cathedral at Asti

Travel tip:

Asti is one of the most important cities in Piedmont in terms of art and literature, notably as the birthplace of Vittorio Alfieri, the famous 18th century poet and dramatist. The town's historic centre, is charmingly quaint, the highlight of which is the triangular Piazza Alfieri, where the town’s famous Palio horse race is staged.   It has a wealth of palaces, towers and ancient churches, and a magnificent Gothic cathedral.

Travel tip:

The Cimitero Flaminio is in the Rome suburb of Prima Porta, which is so called because of an arch under an aqueduct carrying water across the Via Flaminia, which was considered a gateway into Rome from the north.  The Via Flaminia, which effectively begins at Piazza del Popolo in the centre of Rome, stretches all the way across the Apennines to what is now Rimini on the Adriatic coast.

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Death of Marconi

State funeral for engineer who was at first shunned

Guglielmo Marconi, photographed in 1908

Guglielmo Marconi, the Italian electrical engineer who is credited with the invention of radio, died on this day in Rome in 1937.

Aged 63, he passed away following a series of heart attacks.  He was granted a state funeral in recognition of the prestige he brought to Italy through his pioneering work.

In Great Britain, where he had spent a significant part of his professional life, all BBC and Post Office radio transmitters observed a two-minute silence to coincide with the start of the funeral service in Rome.

Marconi was born in Bologna on April 25, 1874. His father, Giuseppe Marconi, was an Italian country gentleman who was married to Annie Jameson, a member of the Jameson whiskey family from County Wexford in Ireland.  A student of physics and electrical science from an early age, Guglielmo conducted experiments at his father's country estate at Pontecchio, near Bologna, where he succeeded in sending wireless signals between two transmitters a mile and a half apart.

Disappointingly, the initial response to his discovery was sceptical and Marconi's request to the Italian government to help fund further research did not even receive a reply.  As a result, in 1896, he moved to London.

With the backing of William Preece, chief electrical engineer of the British Post Office, he was able to complete successful transmissions over increasing distances using Morse code signals, even over open sea.  The Italian government now did begin to take an interest, but it was in Britain and the United States that he continued to break new ground.

Marconi photographed during the first transatlantic
wireless transmission on 1901

He sent messages across the English channel for the first time in 1899. Later in the same year, after being invited by the American shipping company, American Line, to install equipment on the liner SS Saint Paul, he was responsible for the first ship-to-shore message as the Saint Paul heralded her imminent return to England by generating a signal from 66 nautical miles off the English coast.

The Marconi Telegraph Company was established in London in 1899 and in December 1901 Marconi sent and received the first transatlantic wireless message, between antennae set up in Cornwall in England and Nova Scotia in Canada.

Marconi might have perished in the Titanic disaster in 1912.  He had enjoyed more success, including the establishment of a commercial news service for shipping and a fixed transatlantic radio link, and was invited to travel on the Titanic's fateful maiden voyage.  As it was, Marconi decided to travel three days' earlier on the Lusitania. Later, he was acclaimed for the role played by his radio equipment in the rescue of 705 of the Titanic's 2,224 passengers.

In 1909, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics jointly with the German inventor Karl Ferdinand Braun.

Returning to Italy in 1913 and settling in Rome, Marconi was made a Senator in the Italian Senate and appointed Honorary Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order in the UK.

During World War I, Marconi was placed in charge of the Italian military's radio service. He attained the rank of lieutenant in the Italian Army and of commander in the Italian Navy. In 1929, he was made a marquess by King Victor Emmanuel III.

Controversially, Marconi joined the Italian Fascist party in 1923, becoming a member of the Fascist Grand Council in 1930 when the dictator Benito Mussolini appointed him President of the Royal Academy of Italy.

Married twice, he left his entire fortune to his second wife, the daughter of an Italian count, and their daughter, named Maria Elettra Elena Anna.

The Villa Marconi in Pontecchio, near Bologna

Travel tip:

A monument to Marconi can be seen in the Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence but his remains are in the Mausoleum of Guglielmo Marconi in Pontecchio Marconi, near Bologna. His former villa, adjacent to the mausoleum, is now the Marconi Museum. holding much of his equipment.

Travel tip:

The Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence is the burial place of some of the most illustrious Italians, such as Michelangelo, Galileo, Machiavelli, Foscolo, Gentile and Rossini.

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