18 March

Mount Vesuvius – the 1944 eruption

The last time the volcano was seen to blow its top

Mount Vesuvius, the huge volcano looming over the bay of Naples, last erupted on this day in 1944.  Vesuvius is the only volcano on mainland Europe to have erupted during the last 100 years and is regarded as a constant worry because of its history of explosive eruptions and the large number of people living close by.  It is most famous for its eruption in AD 79, which buried the Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum and is believed to have killed thousands of people.  An eyewitness account of the eruption, in which tons of stones, ash and fumes were ejected from the cone, has been left behind for posterity by Pliny the Younger in his letters to the historian, Tacitus.  There were at least three larger eruptions of Vesuvius before AD 79 and there have been many since. In 1631 a major eruption buried villages under lava flows and killed about 300 people. Read more…

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The Five Days of Milan

Citizens rebel to drive out ruling Austrians

The Five Days of Milan, one of the most significant episodes of the Risorgimento, began on this day in 1848 as the citizens of Milan rebelled against Austrian rule.  More than 400 Milanese citizens were killed and a further 600 wounded but after five days of street battles the Austrian commander, Marshal Josef Radetzky, withdrew his 13,000 troops from the city.  The 'Cinque Giornate' uprising sparked the First Italian War of Independence between the Kingdom of Sardinia and the Austrian Empire.  Much of northern Italy was under Austrian rule in the early part of the 19th century and they maintained a harsh regime. Elsewhere, governments were introducing social reform, especially in Rome but also in Sicily, Salerno and Naples after riots against the Bourbon King Ferdinand II.  Both the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and the Kingdom of Sardinia, adopted a new constitution, limiting the power of the monarchy.  Read more…

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Alessandro Alessandroni – composer

Versatile musician became famous for his haunting whistle

Alessandro Alessandroni, the composer of more than 40 film scores who could play many different musical instruments, was born on this day in 1925 in Soriano nel Cimino near Viterbo.  As a child he was a friend of Ennio Morricone and the two of them went on to collaborate on many soundtracks for Spaghetti Western films.  Alessandroni also founded the 16-member vocal group I Cantori Moderni (The Modern Choristers) in 1961. His first wife, the singer Giulia De Mutiis, was a member of the group, who performed wordless vocals on many Italian film soundtracks, as was Edda Dell’Orso, whose exceptional voice also featured in Morricone’s scores.  Most notably they sang Mah Na Mah Na for the film Sweden Heaven and Hell, a song which was later popularised by The Muppet Show.  Read more…

Bobby Solo - pop singer

Sixties star found fame after Sanremo disqualification

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. Read more…

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Gian Francesco Malipiero – composer and musicologist

Musician revived interest in Monteverdi and composed music in the same spirit

A composer and editor whose work helped to rekindle interest in pre-19th century Italian music, Gian Francesco Malipiero, was born on this day in 1882 in Venice.  Malipiero’s own output, which included operas and orchestral works, has been assessed by experts as fusing modern techniques with the stylistic qualities of early Italian music.  The composer was born into an aristocratic Venetian family and was the grandson of the opera composer Francesco Malipiero. He studied music at the Vienna conservatory and then returned to Venice to carry on his studies. He used to copy out the music of Claudio Monteverdi and Girolamo Frescobaldi at the Biblioteca Marciana in Venice, which inspired his love of music from that period. He moved to Bologna to continue his studies and after graduating, returned to Venice and became an assistant to the blind composer Antonio Smareglia. Read more…

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Book of the Day: In the Shadow of Vesuvius: A Cultural History of Naples, by Jordan Lancaster

Naples is an Italian city like no other. Drama and darkness are often associated with Naples, which rests beneath active Mount Vesuvius and is the home of the Camorra - its version of the mafia. But beyond this, Naples reveals itself to be one of the most historically and culturally vibrant cities in Europe.  From its origins in Homer's Odyssey and its founding nearly 3,000 years ago, Naples has long attracted travellers, artists and foreign rulers - from the visitors of the Grand Tour to Goethe, Nelson, Dickens and Neruda.  The stunning beauty of its natural setting coupled with the charms of its colourful past and lively present - from the ruins of Pompeii to the glittering performances of the San Carlo opera house - continue to seduce all those who explore Naples today.  In the Shadow of Vesuvius is a sparkling portrait of the city - the definitive companion for anyone seeking to delve beneath its surface.

Jordan Lancaster studied at the universities of Cambridge and Bologna and holds a PhD in Italian Studies from the University of Toronto. She taught Italian language and literature at universities in Canada and the United States and lived for a time in Naples, where she was a postdoctoral fellow at the Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Storici, before moving to London to work as a translator and interpreter.

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17 March

NEW - Giuseppe Borgatti - tenor

Beautiful voice brings fame for former bricklayer

Opera singer Giuseppe Borgatti, who became known as Italy’s greatest Wagnerian tenor, was born on this day in 1871 in Cento in the province of Ferrara. Borgatti began his working life as a bricklayer and stone cutter, until a wealthy patron discovered that he had an outstanding voice and arranged for him to have music lessons.  He went on to sing leading roles at Teatro alla Scala in Milan for a period of 20 years and he was the first Italian tenor to be invited to sing at the annual Wagner festival held in Bayreuth in Germany.  After being born into a poor family, Borgatti had grown up to be illiterate, but when his singing talent was discovered, a local aristocrat paid for him to have professional singing lessons and to acquire some basic education.  When Borgatti was in his early twenties, he made his debut at Castelfranco Veneto, singing the title role in Faust by Charles Gounod.  Read more…

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Gabriele Ferzetti - actor

Starred in classic Italian films as well as Bond movie

The actor Gabriele Ferzetti, best known to international audiences for his role in the 1969 Bond movie On Her Majesty’s Secret Service but in Italy for the Michelangelo Antonioni classic L’avventura (1960), was born on this day in 1925 in Rome.  Ferzetti, who cut a naturally elegant and debonair appearance, was the go-to actor for handsome, romantic leads in the early part of his career and although he was ultimately eclipsed to some extent by Marcello Mastroianni, he seemed equally content with prominent supporting roles. Rarely idle, he made more than 160 films and appeared in countless TV dramas and was still working at 85 years old.  His intense performance as Antonioni’s wealthy yet unfulfilled playboy opposite Lea Massari and Monica Vitti in L’avventura was the role that identified him most as an actor of considerable talent. Read more…

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Angelo Beolco - playwright

Actor and dramatist with a genius for comedy

One of the most powerful Italian dramatists of the 16th century, Angelo Beolco, who was nicknamed Ruzzante (or sometimes Ruzante) after his favourite character, died on this day in 1542 in Padua in the Veneto region.  Beolco was famous for his rustic comedies, which were written mostly in the Paduan dialect of the Venetian language.  Many of his plays featured a peasant called Ruzzante and they painted a vivid picture of life in the Paduan countryside during the 16th century.  Beolco was born in Padua in 1496 and was the illegitimate son of a doctor. His mother was possibly a maid in the household where he was brought up by his father. He received a good education and after his father’s death became manager of the family estate. In 1529, he also became manager of a farm owned by a nobleman, Alvise Cornaro, who had retired to live in the Paduan countryside.  Read more…

Innocenzo Manzetti - inventor

Made prototype telephone 33 years ahead of Bell

The inventor Innocenzo Manzetti, credited by some scientific historians as having been the creator of a forerunner of the telephone many years ahead of his compatriot Antonio Meucci and the Scottish-American Alexander Graham Bell, was born on this day in 1826 in Aosta, in northwest Italy.  Manzetti's extraordinary catalogue of inventions included a steam-powered car, a hydraulic water pump, a pendulum watch that would keep going for a whole year and a robot that could play the flute.  But he was a man whose creative talents were not allied to business sense.  Like Meucci, a Florentine emigrant to New York who demonstrated a telephone-like device in 1860 - 16 years before Bell was granted the patent - Manzetti did not patent his device and therefore missed out on the fortune that came the way of Bell.  Read more…

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Giovanni Trapattoni - football coach

His seven Serie A titles is unequalled achievement

Giovanni Trapattoni, the former Juventus and Internazionale coach who is one of only six coaches to have won the principal league titles of four different European countries, was born on this day in 1939 in Cusano Milanino, a suburb on the northern perimeter of Milan.  The most successful club coach in the history of Serie A, he won seven titles, six with Juventus and one with Inter.  His nearest challenger in terms of most Italian domestic championships is Massimiliano Allegri, who won six - five with Juventus, one with AC Milan. In addition, Trapattoni has also won the German Bundesliga with Bayern Munich, the Portuguese Primeira Liga with Benfica and the Austrian Bundesliga with Red Bull Salzburg, with whom he secured his 10th league title all told in 2007. Former Chelsea and Manchester United boss Jose Mourinho is among the other managers to have won titles in four countries.  Read more…

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Kingdom of Italy proclaimed

First king of Italy calls himself Victor Emmanuel II

The newly-unified Kingdom of Italy was officially proclaimed on this day in 1861 in Turin.  The first Italian parliament to meet in the city confirmed Victor Emmanuel as the first King of the new country.  It was the monarch's own choice to call himself Victor Emmanuel II, rather than Victor Emmanuel I. This immediately provoked criticism from some factions, who took it as implying that Italy had always been ruled by the House of Savoy.  Victor Emmanuel I, with whom Victor Emmanuel II had ancestral links, had been King of Sardinia - ruled by the Dukes of Savoy - from 1802 until his death in 1824.  Victor Emmanuel II had become King of Sardinia in 1849 after his father, Charles Albert, abdicated. His father had succeeded a distant cousin, Charles Felix, to become King of Sardinia in 1831.  The Kingdom of Sardinia is considered to be the legal predecessor to the Kingdom of Italy. Read more…

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Book of the Day: Richard Wagner: The Sorcerer of Bayreuth, by Barry Millington

Richard Wagner is one of the most influential and also one of the most polarizing composers in the history of music. Over the course of his long career, he produced a stream of spellbinding works that challenged musical convention through their richness and tonal experimentation, ultimately paving the way for modernism. The Sorcerer of Bayreuth presents an in-depth but easy-to-read overview of Wagner's life, work and times. Making use of the very latest scholarship, much of it undertaken by the author himself in connection with his editorship of The Wagner Journal, Millington reassesses received notions about Wagner and his work, demolishing ill-informed opinion in favour of proper critical understanding. It is a radical and occasionally controversial reappraisal of this most perplexing of composers. The book considers a whole range of themes, including the composer's original sources of inspiration; his fetish for exotic silks; his relationship with his wife, Cosima, and with his mistress, Mathilde Wesendonck; his anti-semitism; the opera's proto-cinematic nature; and the turbulent legacy both of the Bayreuth Festival and of Wagnerism itself. The volume’s arrangement, unique among books on the composer, combines an accessible text, intriguing images and original documents in carefully co-ordinated sections, thus ensuring a consistently fresh approach. 

Barry Millington is founder/editor of The Wagner Journal and author of eight books on Wagner. He is chief music critic for the Evening Standard. He has also acted as dramaturgical adviser at opera houses internationally.

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Giuseppe Borgatti - tenor

Beautiful voice brings fame for former bricklayer

Borgatti was an illiterate bricklayer
before his vocal talent was spotted

Opera singer Giuseppe Borgatti, who became known as Italy’s greatest Wagnerian tenor, was born on this day in 1871 in Cento in the province of Ferrara.

Borgatti began his working life as a bricklayer and stone cutter, until a wealthy patron discovered that he had an outstanding voice and arranged for him to have music lessons. 

He went on to sing leading roles at Teatro alla Scala in Milan for a period of 20 years and he was the first Italian tenor to be invited to sing at the annual Wagner festival held in Bayreuth in Germany.

After being born into a poor family, Borgatti had grown up to be illiterate, but when his singing talent was discovered, a local aristocrat paid for him to have professional singing lessons and to acquire some basic education.

When Borgatti was in his early twenties, he made his debut at Castelfranco Veneto, singing the title role in Faust by Charles Gounod. After performing at some Italian opera houses, he was given the chance to sing the role of Chevalier des Grieux in Giacomo Puccini’s Manon Lescaut in a production in Venice. 

Later in the year, he appeared at Teatro del Verme in Milan as Lohengrin, which was his first Wagnerian role.

Borgatti’s big breakthrough came when he sang the title role in Andrea Chénier on the night of the premiere of the opera at La Scala in Milan. The composer of the opera, Umberto Giordano, had worked with the tenor Alfonso Garulli to create the role of Andrea Chénier, but Garulli became ill at the eleventh hour and his place on the first night in 1896 had to be taken by the young tenor Borgatti.

On the night of the premiere, many members of the audience in Milan were moved by the emotional intensity of Giordano’s music sung by Borgatti. 

The opera was a big success and his triumph in the role escalated him into the top tier of Italian opera singers. 

Borgatti continued to appear in Italian operas, but also worked closely with La Scala’s principal conductor, Arturo Toscanini to try to master the main tenor parts in the Richard Wagner repertoire. He also travelled to Spain, Russia, and South America with other Italian opera stars to perform. 

Borgatti on stage at as Siegfried in the
third opera of Wagner's The Ring Cycle

In 1901 he took part in a grand concert at La Scala, held to mark the death of Giuseppe Verdi, in which the rising young star Enrico Caruso also appeared. 

Borgatti was honoured by being the first Italian tenor asked to sing at the Bayreuth festival in Germany in 1904, after which Cosima Wagner, the composer’s widow, praised his voice.

When he was at the height of his career in 2007 and his voice was at its peak, Borgatti began losing his sight due to glaucoma. After another seven years, he had to retire from the operatic stage, even though his voice was still excellent.

He continued to give concerts and the theatre in his home town of Cento was named in his honour in 1924. Eventually he lost his sight in both eyes and, in 1928, he gave his last public performance in Bologna.

After retiring, he taught singing in Milan. His best known pupils were the English Lyric tenor, Heddle Nash, and the German baritone, Willi Domgraf-Fassbaender.

Borgatti married one of his singing teachers, Elena Cuccoli, and they had a daughter, Renata Borgatti, who became a concert pianist.

Borgatti died in 1850 when he was 79 at Reno di Leggiuno, a resort he had moved to near Lago Maggiore. He left fewer than 20 recordings, which were all sung in Italian, of extracts from works by Wagner, Verdi, and Puccini. Borgatti had been La Scala’s original Cavaradossi in Puccini’s Tosca in 1900 and among the recordings he left behind is the aria E lucevan le stelle, from Tosca.

Cento's impressive Rocca, the 14th century castle
originally built by the Bishop of Bologna

Travel tip:

Cento, where Giuseppe Borgatti was born, is a town in the province of Ferrara in Emilia-Romagna. It grew from being a little fishing village to become an established farming town and, in 1502, Pope Alexander VI took Cento away from the dominion of the Bishop of Bologna and made it part of the dowry for his daughter, Lucrezia Borgia, when she was betrothed to Duke Alfonso I d’Este. Cento was returned to the Papal States in 1598.The town’s 19th century theatre was named the Teatro Comunale Giuseppe Borgatti in honour of the famous tenor.  Known sometimes as "Little Bologna" for its arcaded streets and colourful buildings, it is famous as the birthplace of the Baroque painter Guercino, for its historic 14th-century Rocca fortress, and its world-renowned carnival.  Some of Guercino’s works can be seen in the Palazzo del Monte di Pietà, which houses the Civic Gallery, as well as in the Basilica Collegiata San Biagio, the Church of the Rosary and, in the frazione of Corporeno, the 14th-century church of San Giorgio.  The Rocca, a massive square castle with square towers, was built in 1378 by the Bishop of Bologna and enlarged by Giulio della Rovere, the future pope Julius II, in 1460.

Hotels in Cento by Hotels.com

The Hermitage of Santa Caterina del Sasso, built into
the rock face, is accessible only by boat or on foot

Travel tip:

Giuseppe Borgatti went to live at Reno di Leggiuno, a resort at Lago Maggiore in the province of Varese, when he retired and he died there in 1850. Reno di Leggiuno is a picturesque  hamlet on the Lombardy shore of the lake. The area is famous for the Hermitage of Santa Caterina del Sasso, a Roman Catholic monastery perched on a rocky ridge overlooking the lake, which dates back possibly to the 12th century. It is thought to have been founded by a hermit, Alberto Besozzi. Though still in use as a monastery, it serves mainly as a tourist attraction and pilgrimage site. It can be reached by boat or on foot by climbing down a winding stairway and was declared a national monument in 1914. Reno di Leggiuno, which has a marina and a number of hotels, is a tranquil, authentic location featuring a scenic sand-and-pebble beach, lakefront dining, and panoramic views of the Borromean Islands. It is the birthplace of the footballer Luigi ‘Gigi’ Riva, while the actor and playwright Dario Fo, was born in nearby Leggiuno Sangiano. Reno di Leggiuno is about 25km (15 miles) northwest of the city of Varese.

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More reading:

The opera that propelled Umberto Giordano into the front rank of composers

How the great conductor Toscanini became an orchestra leader by chance

The painter Guercino, 17th century master who is Cento’s most famous son

Also on this day:

1542: The death of playwright Angelo Bealco

1826: The birth of inventor Innocenzo Manzetti

1861: Kingdom of Italy proclaimed 

1925: The birth of actor Gabriele Ferzetti

1939: The birth of football coach Giovanni Trapattoni

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16 March

Aldo Moro - Italy's tragic former prime minister

Politician kidnapped and murdered by Red Brigades

Italy and the wider world were deeply shocked on this day in 1978 when the former Italian prime minister, Aldo Moro, was kidnapped on the streets of Rome in a violent ambush that claimed the lives of his five bodyguards.  The attack took place on Via Mario Fani, a few minutes from Signor Moro's home in the Monte Mario area, at shortly after 9am during the morning rush hour.  Moro, a 61-year-old Christian Democrat politician who had formed a total of five Italian governments, between 1963 and 1968 and again from 1974-76, was being driven to the Palazzo Montecitorio in central Rome for a session of the Chamber of Deputies.  As the traffic forced Moro's car to pause outside a café, one of four small Fiat saloon cars used by the kidnappers reversed into a space in front of Moro's larger Fiat, in which the front seats were occupied by two carabinieri officers with Moro sitting behind them.  Read more…

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Emilio Lunghi - athlete

Italy's first Olympic medallist 

Emilio Lunghi, a middle-distance runner who was the first to win an Olympic medal in the colours of Italy, was born on this day in 1886 in Genoa.  Competing in the 800 metres at the 1908 Olympic Games in London, Lunghi took the silver medal behind the American Mel Sheppard. In a fast-paced final, Lunghi's time was 1 minute 54.2 seconds, which was 1.8 seconds faster than the previous Olympic record but still 1.4 seconds behind Sheppard.  It was the same Olympics at which Lunghi's compatriot Dorando Pietri was controversially disqualified after coming home first in the marathon, when race officials took pity on him after he collapsed from exhaustion after entering the stadium and helped him across the line.  A versatile athlete who raced successfully at distances from 400m up to 3,000m, Lunghi was national champion nine times in six events and is considered the first great star of Italian track and field.  Read more…

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Palma Bucarelli - art historian and curator

Iconic figure who transformed major Rome gallery

Palma Bucarelli, an art historian who for more than 30 years was director and superintendent of the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna (GNAM) in Rome, was born on this day in 1910 in the Italian capital.  Under Bucarelli’s dynamic leadership, GNAM was transformed into a major centre in Italy’s cultural life, staging groundbreaking exhibitions featuring some of the biggest names in modern and contemporary art, such as Pablo Picasso, Piet Mondrian, Jackson Pollock, and Mark Rothko.  A champion of abstract and avant-garde art, for which she was a powerful advocate, she also worked hard on behalf of Italian artists to showcase their work alongside their international counterparts.  Turning GNAM into an active space for public engagement and encouraging debate that challenged traditional perceptions of modern art, she helped position Italy as a significant player in the contemporary art scene during the mid-20th century.  Read more…

Bernardo Bertolucci - film director

Caused outrage with Last Tango in Paris

The controversial filmmaker Bernardo Bertolucci was born on this day in 1940 in Parma.  Bertolucci won an Oscar for best director as The Last Emperor picked up an impressive nine Academy Awards in 1988 but tends to be remembered more for the furore that surrounded his 1972 movie Last Tango in Paris. Starring Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider, Last Tango in Paris caused outrage for its portrayal of sexual violence and emotional turmoil and was banned in Italy.  Although the storm died down over time, it blew up again in 2007 when Schneider, who was only 19 when the film was shot, claimed she felt violated after one particularly graphic scene because she had not been told everything that would happen.  Schneider died from cancer in 2011.  The controversy has overshadowed what has otherwise been an outstanding career. Read more…

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Tiberius – Roman Emperor

The decline of a leader who ruled from a beautiful place of exile

After starting his reign in glory, the Emperor Tiberius slowly deteriorated and is reputed to have become steadily crueller and more debauched until he died on this day in 37 AD in Misenum, now Miseno, in Campania.  Tiberius had become the second Roman Emperor, succeeding his stepfather, Augustus, in 14 AD. As a young man, he had been a successful general, but at the age of 36 he chose to retire and go to live in Rhodes because he was determined to avoid getting involved in politics.  However, after the deaths of both grandsons of Augustus, his ailing stepfather had no choice but to make Tiberius his heir.  Tiberius inherited the throne at the age of 54 and was at first a hardworking ruler, trying to pass sensible and far-seeing laws. He stopped pointless, costly conflicts and the waste of the empire’s money and was said to have left the imperial coffers much fuller than when he inherited them.  Read more…

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Enrico Tamberlik – tenor

Imposing king of the high C sharp

Opera singer Enrico Tamberlik, who is remembered for the quality of his remarkable high notes, was born on this day in 1820 in Rome.  At the height of his career, Tamberlik, whose name is also sometimes spelt Tamberlick, sang regularly at the Royal Opera House in London and in St Petersburg, Paris and America.  The singer is believed to have been of Romanian descent but was born in Italy and did all his vocal training in Naples, Bologna and Milan.  At the age of 17 Tamberlik made his debut in a concert and then made his first appearance on the operatic stage as Gennaro in Lucrezia Borgia by Gaetano Donizetti at the Teatro Apollo in Rome.  In 1841 he appeared under the name Enrico Danieli at the Teatro Fondo in Naples as Tybalt in I Capuleti e I Montecchi by Vincenzo Bellini. A year later he made his debut at Teatro San Carlo in Naples. Read more…

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Book of the Day: The Red Brigades: The Terrorists who Brought Italy to its Knees, by John Foot

In March 1978, the Red Brigades kidnapped former Italian prime minister Aldo Moro, murdering his bodyguards. For nearly two months, they held him hostage while a shocked world looked on, before eventually killing him and dumping his body in the middle of Rome.  But who were this terrorist group? What did they want? And how did they continue to operate for almost 20 years, terrifying a nation from 1970 to 1988? In John Foot's remarkable new book, we learn how they became the most formidable left-wing terrorist organisation in post-war Western Europe. They recognised no rules and authority other than their own, and launched a campaign of murder, kidnap, kneecapping and intimidation that paralysed Italy's justice system and reshaped the political landscape.  In The Red Brigades: The Terrorists who Brought Italy to its Knees, Foot uncovers the true story behind the myths that have grown around the group, highlighting the human costs of their actions, as well as their impact on Italian society. He explains how the contradictions inherent in their actions eventually led to their downfall and highlights their legacy of conspiracy, distrust and bitterness that still lingers in Italy to this day.

John Foot is Professor of Modern Italian History at the University of Bristol. He has written a number of acclaimed books on Italian politics, history and sport, including Blood and Power: The Rise and Fall of Italian Fascism; The Archipelago: Italy Since 1945; and Calcio: The History of Italian Football.

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15 March

The murder of Julius Caesar

He came, saw, conquered... and was assassinated

Statesman and soldier Gaius Julius Caesar was murdered on this day in 44 BC in Rome.  His death made the Ides of March, the day on the Roman calendar devised by Caesar that corresponds to 15 March, a turning point in Roman history, one of the events that marked the transition from the Roman Republic to the Roman Empire.  Caesar had made his mark as a soldier in Asia Minor and Spain and established himself as a politician, making useful allies.  But his invasion of Gaul took several years and was the most costly and destructive campaign ever undertaken by a Roman commander. Afterwards, Caesar crossed the Rubicon - a river that formed a northern border of Italy - with a legion of troops, entered Rome illegally, and established himself as a dictator dressed in royal robes.  On the Ides of March, Caesar was stabbed to death by a group of rebellious senators. Read more…

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Cesare Beccaria - jurist and criminologist

Enlightened philosopher seen as father of criminal justice

The jurist and philosopher Cesare Beccaria, who is regarded as one of the greatest thinkers of the so-called Age of Enlightenment in the 18th century, and whose writings had a profound influence on justice systems all over the world, was born on this day in 1738 in Milan.  As the author of a treatise On Crimes and Punishments (1764), which was a ground-breaking work in the field of criminal law and the approach to punishing offenders, Beccaria is considered by many academics to be the father of criminal justice.  The treatise, which Beccaria compiled when he was only 26 years old, condemned the death penalty on the grounds that the state does not possess the right to take lives and declared torture to be a barbaric practice with no place in a civilised, measured society.  It outlined five principles for an effective system of criminal justice. Read more…

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Salvator Rosa – artist

Exciting Baroque painter inspired others

Salvator Rosa, a fiery and flamboyant character who was a poet and actor as well as an artist, died on this day in 1673 in Rome.  One of the least conventional artists of 17th century Italy, he was adopted as a hero by painters of the Romantic movement in the 18th and 19th centuries.  He mainly painted landscapes, but also depicted scenes of witchcraft, revealing his interest in the less conventional ideas of his age. These scenes were also sometimes the background for his etchings and the satires he wrote.  Rosa was born in Arenella on the outskirts of Naples. His father, a land surveyor, wanted him to become a lawyer or priest and entered him in the convent of the Somaschi Fathers.  Rosa was interested in art and secretly learnt about painting with his uncle and his brother-in-law, Francesco Fracanzano, who was a pupil of Jose de Ribera. Read more…

Gianluca Festa - footballer

Sardinian became a favourite in England

The footballer and coach Gianluca Festa, who played 177 matches in Italy’s Serie A but is best remembered as the first Italian defender to sign for a club in England’s Premier League, was born on this day in 1969 in Cagliari.  Festa joined Middlesbrough in January 1997 after manager Bryan Robson agreed to pay Inter-Milan £2.7million for the centre-back, who joined his Italian compatriot Fabrizio Ravanelli at the northeast England club.  Ravanelli had arrived in England the previous summer as one of a number of Italian stars to move from Serie A, a sign that the Premier League was beginning to challenge Serie A for the right to be called Europe’s top league.  Chelsea had signed Gianluca Vialli from Juventus and Roberto Di Matteo from Lazio, to be joined by Parma’s Gianfranco Zola later in the autumn, and Sheffield Wednesday had bought Festa’s former Inter teammate Benito Carbone.  Read more…

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Giuseppe Mezzofanti - hyperpolyglot

Roman Catholic Cardinal could speak 38 languages

The death occurred in Rome on this day in 1849 of Cardinal Giuseppe Caspar Mezzofanti, a prodigiously talented academic renowned for his command of multiple foreign languages.  Defined as a hyperpolyglot - someone who is fluent in six languages or more - Mezzofanti is said to have full command of at least 38.  The majority were European, Mediterranean or Middle Eastern languages - mainstream and regional - but he was also said to be fluent in Chinese languages, Russian, plus Hindi and Gujarati.  His fame was such that he became something of an international celebrity, although he never actually left Italy, living the early part of his life in his home city of Bologna, before moving to Rome.  Visiting dignitaries from all over the world would ask to be introduced to him, ready to be awestruck as he slipped effortlessly into their native tongue.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Rubicon: The Triumph and Tragedy of the Roman Republic, by Tom Holland

The Roman Republic was the most remarkable state in history. What began as a small community of peasants camped among marshes and hills ended up ruling the known world. Rubicon paints a vivid portrait of the Republic at the climax of its greatness - the same greatness which would herald the catastrophe of its fall. This was the century of Julius Caesar, the gambler whose addiction to glory led him to the banks of the Rubicon, and beyond; of Cicero, whose defence of freedom would make him a byword for eloquence; of Spartacus, the slave who dared to challenge a superpower; of Cleopatra, the queen who did the same. Tom Holland brings to life this strange and unsettling civilization, with its extremes of ambition and self-sacrifice, bloodshed and desire. Yet alien as it was, the Republic still holds up a mirror to us. Its citizens were obsessed by celebrity chefs, all-night dancing and exotic pets; they fought elections in law courts and were addicted to spin; they toppled foreign tyrants in the name of self-defence. Two thousand years may have passed, but we remain the Romans' heirs.

Tom Holland, who received a double first from Cambridge, has adapted Homer, Herodotus, Thucydides and Virgil for BBC Radio. He is a writer of scholarly style, perfect for non-fiction. 

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14 March

NEW - Verdi’s Macbeth premieres in Florence

Shakespeare adaptation marked change in composer’s style

Giuseppe Verdi’s operatic interpretation of the Shakespeare play Macbeth was performed for the first time on this day in 1847.  The premiere took place at the Teatro della Pergola in Florence, where the composer, already gaining fame at 33 years old but with his most successful years still to come, was under contract to the impresario Alessandro Lanari.  After his success with Nabucco, his third opera, which featured the great chorus, Va, pensiero, in 1842, Verdi rapidly found himself in demand. Macbeth would be his tenth opera, his eighth in just five years. Lanari, confident that anything bearing the up-and-coming maestro’s name would sell tickets, was happy to leave the choice of work to Verdi himself, and so did not give him a particular brief.  The theatre was known for its refined acoustics and had a reputation for supporting innovative work.  Read more… 

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Giovanni Schiaparelli - astronomer

Discoveries sparked belief there was life on Mars

The astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli, whose observations in the late 19th century gave rise to decades of popular speculation about possible life on Mars, was born on this day in 1835 in Savigliano, about 60km (37 miles) south of Turin.  Schiaparelli worked for more than 40 years at the Brera Observatory in Milan, most of that time as its director.  It was in 1877 that he made the observations that were to cause so much excitement, a year notable for a particularly favourable 'opposition' of Mars, when Mars, Earth and the Sun all line up so that Mars and the Sun are on directly opposite sides of Earth, making the surface of Mars easier to see.  Oppositions occur every two years or so but because the orbit of Mars is more elliptical than Earth's there are points at which it is much closer to the Sun than at others.  An opposition that coincides with one of these points is much rarer, probably taking place only once in a lifetime, if that.  Read more…

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Victor Emmanuel II

The first king to rule over a united Italy

King Victor Emmanuel II was born Vittorio Emanuele Maria Alberto Eugenio Ferdinando Tommaso on this day in 1820 in Turin.  He was proclaimed the first king of a united Italy in 1861 by the country’s new parliament and in 1870, after the French withdrew, he entered the city of Rome and set up the new Italian capital there. The Italian people called him Padre della Patria - Father of the Fatherland.  Born Prince Victor Emmanuel of Savoy, he was the eldest son of Charles Albert, Prince of Carignano, and Maria Theresa of Austria. His father succeeded a distant cousin as King of Sardinia- Piedmont in 1831.  In 1842 Victor Emmanuel married his cousin Adelaide of Austria and was styled as the Duke of Savoy before becoming King of Sardinia-Piedmont after his father abdicated the throne following a humiliating military defeat by the Austrians at the Battle of Novara.  Read more…

Giangiacomo Feltrinelli – publisher

Accidental death of an aristocratic activist

Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, a leading European publisher and one of Italy’s richest men, died on this day in 1972 after being blown up while trying to ignite a terrorist bomb on an electricity pylon at Segrate near Milan.  It was a bizarre end to the life and career of a man who had helped revolutionise Italian book publishing. He became famous for his decision to translate and publish Boris Pasternak’s novel Doctor Zhivago after the manuscript was smuggled out of the Soviet Union, where it had been banned on the grounds of being anti-Soviet.  This was an event that shook the Soviet empire and led to Pasternak winning the Nobel Prize in Literature.  Feltrinelli also started the first chain of book shops in Italy, which still bear his name.   He was born in 1926 into a wealthy, monarchist family. At the instigation of his mother, Feltrinelli was created Marquess of Gargnano when he was 12 by Benito Mussolini.  Read more…

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Giuseppe Maria Crespi - painter

Artist from Baroque period who excelled in genre painting

The painter Giuseppe Maria Crespi, one of the first Italian exponents of genre painting, which depicts ordinary people in scenes from everyday life, was born on this day in 1665 in Bologna.  Crespi also painted portraits and caricatures as well as religious paintings, especially at the beginning and end of his career. Even in his religious work, the scenes would include ordinary people, such as his acclaimed series, the The Seven Sacraments, originally commissioned by Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni in Rome, which now hangs in the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister - the Old Masters’ Gallery - in Dresden.  Growing up in Bologna, he learned the basics of drawing and painting from Angelo Michele Toni, to whom he was apprenticed at the age of 12. His taste in clothes - he favoured the tight garments characteristic of Spanish fashion - earned him the nickname Lo Spagnuolo - the Spaniard.  Read more…

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Umberto I - King of Italy

Assassination attempts overshadow the reign of unpopular monarch

The second king of the newly-unified Italy, Umberto I, was born on this day in 1844 in Turin, in the region of Piemonte, which was then in the Kingdom of Sardinia.  As king, Umberto I led Italy into the Triple Alliance with Austria-Hungary and Germany, and his support for nationalistic and imperialist policies during his reign led to disaster for his country and helped to create the atmosphere in which he was eventually assassinated. The son of King Victor Emmanuel II and Archduchess Adelaide of Austria, Umberto was brought up with no love or affection from his parents, but was instead taught to be obedient and loyal.  His father, whose 24th birthday fell on the day Umberto was born, gave him no training in politics or government and entrusted Umberto’s education to some of his statesmen. Umberto went into the Royal Sardinian Army as a captain and took part in the Italian Wars of Independence. Read more…

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Book of the Day: The Shortest History of Italy, by Ross King

From Michelangelo to Mussolini, Nero to Meloni, Galileo to Garibaldi, here is the sparkling story of the world’s most influential peninsula.  The calendar, the university, the piano; the Vespa, the pistol and the pizzeria… It’s easy to assume that inventions like these could only come from somewhere sure of its place in the world. Yet these pages reveal a land rife with uncertainty even as its influence spread.  From the rise of the Roman Republic to the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, from the glories of Renaissance Florence to the long struggle for unification, from Europe’s first operas to the world’s first ghettos, Ross King nimbly charts the checkered course of Italian history. In the last hundred years, film, fashion and Fiat – once bigger than Volkswagen – emerge from the horrors of fascism and world war. The Shortest History of Italy is a majestic sweep across three millennia of history that not only shaped Europe but the wider world.

Ross King is the author of many bestselling and acclaimed books about Italian history and culture, including The Bookseller of Florence, Brunelleschi’s Dome and Leonardo and the Last Supper. He lives just outside Oxford.

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Verdi’s Macbeth premieres in Florence

Shakespeare adaptation marked change in composer’s style

The poster advertising the first
performance of the opera

Giuseppe Verdi’s operatic interpretation of the Shakespeare play Macbeth was performed for the first time on this day in 1847.

The premiere took place at the Teatro della Pergola in Florence, where the composer, already gaining fame at 33 years old but with his most successful years still to come, was under contract to the impresario Alessandro Lanari.

After his success with Nabucco, his third opera, which featured the great chorus, Va, pensiero, in 1842, Verdi rapidly found himself in demand. Macbeth would be his tenth opera, his eighth in just five years. Lanari, confident that anything bearing the up-and-coming maestro’s name would sell tickets, was happy to leave the choice of work to Verdi himself, and so did not give him a particular brief.

The theatre was known for its refined acoustics and had a reputation for supporting innovative work and Verdi, who already felt his artistic freedom was being compromised by a need to produce commercially viable output, saw an opportunity to shake off at least some constraints.

Having revered the English dramatist William Shakespeare from an early age, Verdi chose Macbeth for a number of reasons. First, he felt the nature of the play would allow him to focus on the drama of the story, rather than adhering strictly to bel canto convention, which demanded a structure built around vocal highlights, sometimes at the expense of realism and depth.

The play had been in Verdi’s mind for some time. What convinced him that the moment to work with it had arrived was the availability of Felice Varesi, a baritone renowned for his dramatic intensity, to cast in the title role.

He faced some challenges in bringing the project to fruition in the way he intended. There were disagreements with his librettist, Francesco Maria Piave, over how to convey the tone Verdi desired. A number of times, the composer asked his friend, Andrea Maffei, another librettist, to provide input as well, even rewriting parts of Piave's libretto.

His leading lady, the soprano Marianna Barbieri-Nini, who had worked with him on his sixth opera, I due Foscari, had to be coached not to infuse her performance with the vocal polish usually required. Keen to emphasise character. Verdi demanded that her Lady Macbeth be “ugly and evil.”

When Verdi’s Macbeth was unveiled, audiences were sceptical about the lack of a central romance and some critics were unsettled by its darkness. Structured in four acts, with the emphasis on Lady Macbeth’s ruthless ambition, Macbeth’s psychological unravelling and the three witches - represented in Verdi’s interpretation by three choral groups - as a driving force of fate, it was nonetheless deemed a success, if not the crowd-pleasing blockbuster Lanari might have been hoping for.

Felice Varesi, the first to
sing the title role

The Florentine audience, who were seen as traditionally more restrained, say, than those in Milan, respected it as a considered, serious and innovative work, if a little unusual. It toured Italy, reportedly being performed at 21 venues around the country, before making its United States debut in New York in 1850, and its United Kingdom debut in Manchester in 1860, although it was never seen as a runaway hit.

The composer himself was said to regard it as his greatest achievement to that point. Later he would talk about it in terms of marking the start of his move away from what he spoke of as his “galley years” as a composer, when he likened himself to a “galley slave”, endlessly under pressure in terms of workload, deadlines, and artistic constraints, as if chained to an oar.

Indeed, Macbeth is now seen as a landmark moment in Verdi’s career, signalling a transition towards the artistic depth that would set him apart as the greatest composer of Italy’s operatic history, placing him above even Giacomo Puccini and Gioachino Rossini as titans of the genre.

By the time he produced the substantially revised version of Macbeth he presented in Paris in 1865, the version generally performed today, he had written Rigoletto, Il trovatore, La traviata, Simon Boccanegra, Un ballo in maschera and La forza del destino, transforming his reputation from that of rising star to a creator of genuine masterpieces.

Verdi’s reverence towards Shakespeare never diminished, even though he would not return to the English playwright until the end of his career, signing off with Otello in 1887 and Falstaff, adapted from The Merry Wives of Windsor, in 1893.

It is thought this was down to a number of factors, among them the conventions of Italian opera in the 19th century, with star singers expecting showcase roles and impresarios wanting traditional theatre-filling melodrama. 

Verdi also had to feel artistically confident that he was able to do a Shakespeare play full justice and be supported by a librettist who could do likewise. Until his collaboration with Arrigo Boito, who worked with him on Otello and Falstaff, such a librettist never appeared.

The Teatro della Pergola, the historic
theatre in the centre of Florence

Travel tip:

Florence’s Teatro della Pergola, where Verdi’s Macbeth was performed before an audience for the first time, was inaugurated in December 1656. It is one of Italy’s oldest and most historically significant theatres, celebrated as the first substantial example of what came to be known as an Italian‑style theatre, with tiers of private boxes, a shift away from the traditional design based on a semi-circle of decreasing steps. It is said to have taken its name from the grape pergola that used to stand nearby. Built under the patronage of Cardinal Giancarlo de’ Medici, it was designed by the architect Ferdinando Tacca, quickly becoming a centre of Florentine cultural life. It was officially opened during the carnival of 1657, with the world premiere of the comic opera Il podestà di Colognole by Jacopo Melani. The genre of melodrama, which became the fundamental currency of opera in Italy, is said to have been born at the Teatro della Pergola, which hosted the premieres of two operas by Gaetano Donizetti,  Parisina d'Este and Rosmonda d’Inghilterra, in 1833 and 1834.  The Pergola also appears as a footnote in another famous story, it being the theatre at which Antonio Meucci, the Italian said to have been the real inventor of the telephone, was working as a stage technician when he constructed a prototype acoustic telephone to communicate between the stage and the theatre’s control room.  Located on Via della Pergola, the theatre is a short walk from Piazza del Duomo, and close to landmarks such as the Palazzo Bargello and the Basilica di Santa Croce. 

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The Baratta Salsamenteria Storica in Busseto, which
celebrates the career of a reputed former customer

Travel tip:

Giuseppe Verdi came from Busseto, a town in Emilia-Romagna about 45km (27 miles) from Parma, 35km (21 miles) from Piacenza and 25km (15 miles) from Cremona. The area has plenty to offer Verdi fans, who can visit the house where he was born, in 1813, in the village of Le Roncole, and the churches of Santa Maria degli Angeli and San Michele Arcangelo, where he played the organ. Visitors can also admire the Palazzo Orlandi, a beautiful house on Via Roma that Verdi bought in 1845, which he shared with his future wife, the soprano Giuseppina Strepponi, from 1849 to 1851. Verdi is said to have composed Luisa Miller, Stiffelio, Rigoletto and Il trovatore while living there. Look out also for the Rocca dei Marchesi Pallavicino, on Piazza Giuseppe Verdi, which houses the Teatro Giuseppe Verdi. In 1913, Arturo Toscanini conducted a performance of Falstaff there in celebration of the centenary of Verdi's birth and to raise funds for what is now a large monument of the seated composer located in the piazza. Visitors to the small town, which has a population of around 6,700 residents, are often drawn to the Baratta Salsamenteria Storica, a tavern and salumeria on Via Roma where Verdi was once reputed to be a regular customer. The tavern specialises in charcuterie boards loaded with local hams, salami and cheeses, which customers eat with chunks of country bread, washed down with red lambrusco wine, traditionally drunk from a bowl rather than a glass.

Hotels in Busseto by Hotels.com

More reading:

Giuseppina Strepponi, the soprano who inspired Verdi and Donizetti

How the premiere of Otello, Verdi’s penultimate opera, prompted 20 curtain calls

The Verdi chorus that, for many Italians, became the country’s national anthem

Also on this day:

1655: The birth of painter Giuseppe Maria Crespi

1835: The birth of astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli

1820: The birth of Victor Emmanuel II, first king of the unified Italy

1844: The birth of Umberto I, second king of the unified Italy

1972: The shocking death of publisher Giangiacomo Feltrinelli

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