Giovanni Michelotti – car designer

The many Triumphs of Turin sports car genius

One of the most prolific designers of sports cars in the 20th century, Giovanni Michelotti died on this day in 1980 in Turin.

Michelotti's iconic Triumph Spitfire
Photo: Luigi Rosa (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Known for his hard work and creative talent, Michelotti has been credited with designing more than 1200 different cars.

He worked for Ferrari, Lancia and Maserati in Italy but car firms abroad soon got to know about him and he also designed for Triumph and BMW.

Michelotti was born in Turin in 1921 and worked for coach building firms before opening his own design studio in 1959.

The first of his designs put into production was for an Alfa Romeo 6C 2500 in 1947.

Among the legendary sports cars designed by Michelotti in Italy are the Ferrari 166 MM and the Maserati Sebring.

In Britain he was responsible for many successful Triumphs, including the famous Spitfire, Stag and TR4. He also designed buses and trucks for British Leyland.

The Shellette beach car with wicker seats
Photo: Brian Snelson (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Under his own name he designed a beach car, the Shellette, with wicker seats. Only about 80 were made, but among the buyers were the Dutch royal family, who used it at their summer property in Porto Ercole, and Jacqueline Onassis.

Michelotti carried on working until the late 1970s and passed on his knowledge to future generations of car designers. He died in his home town of Turin on 23 January 1980 at the age of 58.

Travel tip:

Turin, the home town of Michelotti, is the capital city of the region of Piedmont in the north of Italy. It is an important business centre, particularly for the car industry, and has a rich history linked with the Savoy Kings of Italy. Piazza Castello, with the royal palace, royal library and Palazzo Madama, which used to house the Italian senate, is at the heart of royal Turin .

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The harbour at Porto Ercole in Tuscany
Photo: Mac9 (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Travel tip:

The harbour town of Porto Ercole, where the Dutch royal family used a Michelotti beach car at their summer residence, is in Tuscany, about 40km (25 miles) from Grossetto. The resort is known for its good fish restaurants, its lovely old quarter and for being the place where the painter, Caravaggio, died of fever and was buried there while travelling to Rome in 1610. 

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More reading:

The engineering genius behind the track success of Alfa, Ferrari and Lancia

Also on this day:

1752: The birth of composer and musician Muzio Clementi

1881: The birth of heiress and muse Luisa Casati

1921: The birth of Silvio Gazzaniga, sculptor who designed trophy for soccer's World Cup 

1928: The birth of politician Salvatore Lima

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Papal Swiss Guard

Colourful uniforms camouflage highly trained security professionals

The Pope’s Swiss Guard was founded on this day in Vatican City in 1506.

A soldier from the Swiss
Guard on duty in the Vatican

A contingent of guards from Switzerland has continued to guard the Pope from that day to present times and it is one of the oldest military units still in existence.

The Swiss had been producing mercenary soldiers for hundreds of years with a reputation for loyalty and good discipline.

In the 15th century they were known for their good battle tactics and were employed by many European armies.

Pope Julius II ordered the first Swiss troops to guard the Vatican and they arrived in Rome on 22 January, 1506, the official date now given for the foundation of the Papal Swiss Guard.

The Pope later gave them the title ‘Defenders of the Church’s freedom’.

Recruits to the Pope’s Swiss Guard unit have to be Catholic men of Swiss nationality who have completed military training and can produce evidence of their good conduct.

Since the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II in 1981, the Guards have received training in unarmed combat and in the use of modern weapons.

They are a colourful sight on ceremonial occasions at the Vatican in their blue, red, orange and yellow uniforms of Renaissance design.

US President Barack Obama on his way to an audience
with Pope Francis in 2014, with a Swiss Guard escort

But inside every traditional costume is a state of the art-trained Swiss security professional.

Not only do they guard the Pope in Rome but they are also responsible for security at the Pope’s summer residence at Castel Gandolfo .

Travel tip:

Vatican City is an independent state inside Italy, policed by its own security force, the Swiss Guard. Within it is St Peter’s Basilica, built over the place where St Peter is believed to have been crucified and buried. A few minutes walk from the Basilica you will come to the entrance to the Vatican museums where you can see the Sistine Chapel, which was decorated by Michelangelo. The Pope holds audiences in the Vatican every Wednesday and blesses the crowds in St Peter’s Square every Sunday.

The Apostolic Palace in Castel Gandolfo
Photo: Livioandronico2013 (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Travel tip:

Castel Gandolfo overlooks Lake Albano from its wonderful position in the hills south
of Rome. The Pope takes up residence every summer in the Apostolic Palace there. Although his villa lies within the town’s boundaries, it is one of the properties of the Holy See. The palace is not under Italian jurisdiction and is policed by the Swiss Guard. The whole area is part of the regional park of Castelli Romani and there are many places of historic and artistic interest to see there.

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Gennaro Contaldo – Chef

TV cook is passionate about Amalfi’s speciality dishes

Celebrity chef Gennaro Contaldo was born on this day in 1949 in Minori in Campania.

Gennaro Contaldo

Contaldo has made many appearances on British television alongside chefs such as Antonio Carluccio, Jamie Oliver and James Martin and he has also brought out several cook books.

It is well documented that he is the man responsible for inspiring Jamie Oliver’s interest in Italian food.

Contaldo grew up in the small seaside town of Minori near Amalfi and is a passionate advocate of the style of cooking in the area, cucina amalfitana.

From an early age he was interested in dishes cooked with local produce, going out to collect wild herbs for his mother, and he began helping out in local restaurants at the age of eight.

Contaldo moved to Britain in the late 1960s and travelled around the country working in village restaurants and studying the food growing wild in each area, such as herbs and mushrooms.

He eventually went to London and worked in several restaurants, including Antonio Carluccio’s establishment in Neal Street .

Contaldo opened his own restaurant in London, Passione, which won a Best Restaurant award, but he closed it after a few years when business began to decline.

His first cook book, Passione, dedicated to cucina amalfitana, won an award in 2003.

He mentored Jamie Oliver when they first met and has appeared on many of Oliver’s television shows, also helping him develop the menus for his chain of Italian restaurants in the UK .

Contaldo toured the regions of Italy with Antonio Carluccio for the BBC series, Two Greedy Italians. They then made a second series Two Greedy Italians: Still Hungry.

Contaldo now lives in London with his partner and their twin daughters.

Travel tip:

Minori is a pretty seaside resort on the Amalfi coast in the province of Salerno, with a good beach and plenty of hotels and restaurants. The ruins of a first century Roman villa were discovered there during the 1950s, showing that Minori had been considered a good holiday location more than 2000 years ago.

The Cathedral of St Andrew
is Amalfi's architectural pride

Travel tip:

The quaint town of Amalfi was once a maritime power but now the boats just bring visitors to look round the narrow streets and enjoy the restaurants and shops. The town’s great architectural treasure, the Cathedral of Saint Andrew, which dates back to the ninth century, is up a flight of steps from the main square. Amalfi used to be a centre for the production of paper. Most of the paper mills have now closed but you can still buy beautiful stationery produced by one local business.

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Federico Fellini – film director

The cinematic legacy of Rimini’s most famous son

Federico Fellini, one of the most influential filmmakers of the 20th century, was born on this day in Rimini in 1920.

Federico Fellini

He had a career lasting almost 50 years and his films were nominated for 12 Academy Awards and won four Oscars, each for Best Foreign Language Film, with La strada, Nights of Cabiria, 8½ and Amarcord.

Fellini went to Rome to study Law at University but ended up working as a journalist instead.

His assignments for a magazine gave him the opportunity to meet people involved in show business and he eventually got work as a script writer for films and radio.

Fellini worked as both a screenwriter and assistant director on Roberto Rossellini films as well as producing and directing for other filmmakers.

He began work on his first solo film, The White Sheik, in 1951. It received mixed reviews but in 1953 his film, I vitelloni, pleased both the public and the critics.

He won his first Academy Award with Nights of Cabiria, starring his wife, Giulietta Masini, in 1953.  Based on a story by Fellini, the film is about a prostitute who searches in vain for true love.

Watch the scene in La dolce vita in which Anita Ekberg bathes in the Trevi Fountain

Fellini’s film La dolce vita, starring Anita Ekberg and Marcello Mastroianni and set in Rome, broke all box office records in 1960 and won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes film festival. It is one of the most critically acclaimed films of all time.

Amarcord was based on his own memories of growing up in Rimini and features a group of adolescents living in a provincial town in Italy in the 1930s.

Fellini's La Dolce Vita starred
Marcello Mastroianni

It was Fellini’s second biggest commercial success after La dolce vita and won him his fourth Oscar. 

In 1985 he received an award for lifetime achievement at the Venice Biennale and he was also awarded an Oscar for lifetime achievement in 1993.

Fellini died in Rome in October of the same year after suffering a stroke. At the request of his wife, “Improvviso dell’Angelo by Nino Rota, who had written the music for all of films, was played during his funeral.

The airport at Rimini has since been named the Federico Fellini airport in his honour.

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 Franciscans, 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.

The Tempio Maletestiano in Rimini

Travel tip:

The Basilica of Saint Mary of the Angels and the Martyrs (Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri) where Fellini’s funeral was held, is inside the former baths of Diocletian in Piazza della Repubblica in Rome. It was built on the orders of Pope Pius IV in 1561 to be dedicated to all Christian martyrs, known and unknown. Michelangelo and Vanvitelli both contributed to the design of the church.


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