Little Tony – pop singer

Star from San Marino enjoyed a long career 

Little Tony in a scene from the 1967 film Cuore Matto...matto
 de legare. His song Cuore Matto was a huge hit.

Singer and actor Little Tony was born Antonio Ciacci on this day in 1941 in Tivoli near Rome.

His parents were both born in the Republic of San Marino and so Little Tony was Sammarinese and never applied for Italian citizenship.

He became successful in the late 1950s and early 1960s in Britain as the lead singer of Little Tony and His Brothers.

He had formed a group with his brothers, Alberto and Enrico, in 1957, calling himself Little Tony after the singer, Little Richard.

The brothers were signed up by a record company, who released their versions of a series of American songs in Italy.

After being invited to appear on a British TV show, they released their first single in the UK , ‘I can’t help it’, which was their 11th in Italy. Their third single, ‘Too Good’, reached No 19 in the UK singles chart in 1960.

The group returned to Italy to appear at the Sanremo Festival where they came second. Then Little Tony began working as a solo singer and film actor.

Listen to Little Tony performing his hit song Cuore Matto

His hit song Cuore matto - Crazy Heart - was number one for nine consecutive weeks in 1967.

In 1975 he recorded an album Tony canta Elvis - Tony Sings Elvis - paying tribute to Elvis Presley.

Despite suffering a heart attack in 2006, he carried on singing and his last album, poignantly entitled Non finisce qui - This is Not the End, recorded in 2008, spent a week in the Top 100 chart.

Little Tony died in 2013 at the age of 72.

The Maritime Theatre in the remains of the Villa Adriana,
a UNESCO world heritage site at Tivoli

Travel tip:

Tivoli, where Little Tony was born, is a town in Lazio about 30 kilometres north east of Rome. It is famous as the location for Villa Adriana (Hadrian’s Villa), a large Roman archaeological site. The villa was built for the Roman Emperor Hadrian during the second century AD as a retreat from Rome. Now a UNESCO world heritage site, the ruins are a popular tourist destination.

Find a hotel in Tivoli with Hotels.com

The city of San Marino, overlooked by the spectacular
fortress of Guaita.

Travel tip:

Little Tony was a citizen of the Most Serene Republic of San Marino, an independent state within Italy, situated on the north east side of the Apennine mountains and surrounded by romantic battlements and towers, which can be seen from miles away against the skyline. San Marino claims to be the oldest surviving sovereign state and constitutional republic in the world. It is allowed to use the euro as currency, but has its own postage stamps. The republic’s football team compete in the FIFA World Cup. Every year, a festival is held on 3 September to celebrate the founding of the republic in 301.

Find San Marino hotels with Expedia.co.uk

More reading:

The enduring fame of pop singer Patty Pravo

How '60s star Bobby Solo found fame after Sanremo disqualification

Eros Ramazotti - the Sanremo winner with 65 million sales

Also on this day:

1622: The birth of Vittoria della Rovere, Grand Duchess of Tuscany

1497: Firebrand preacher Savanarola's Bonfire of the Vanities

1909: The birth of Amedeo Guillet, the last army office to lead a charge against the British

(Picture credits: San Marino panorama by Jernej Gosar; Villa Adriana by Marie-Lan Nguyen)


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Ugo Foscolo – poet

Revolutionary who expressed his feelings in verse

Ugo Foscolo: this portrait by Francois-Xavier
Fabre is in the Biblioteca Nazionale in Florence

Writer Ugo Foscolo was born Niccolò Foscolo on this day in 1778 on the island of Zakynthos, now part of Greece, but then part of the Republic of Venice.

Foscolo went on to become a revolutionary who wrote poetry and novels that reflected the feelings of many Italians during the turbulent years of the French revolution, the Napoleonic Wars and Austrian rule. His talent was probably not sufficiently appreciated until after his death, but he is particularly remembered for his book of poems, Dei Sepolcri - Of the Sepulchres.

After the death of his father, Andrea, who was an impoverished Venetian nobleman, the family moved back to live in Venice.

Foscolo went on to study at Padova University and by 1797 had begun to write under the name Ugo Foscolo.

While at University he took part in political discussions about the future of Venice and was shocked when Napoleon handed it over to the Austrians in 1797.

He denounced this action in his novel Ultime lettere di Jacopo Ortis - The Last Letters of Jacopo Ortis.

Foscolo moved to Milan where he published a book of sonnets. Still putting his faith in Napoleon, he decided to serve as a volunteer in the French army and was later wounded and taken prisoner.

When he was released he returned to Milan to carry on writing. In 1807 he wrote Dei Sepolchri, a patriotic poem in blank verse. Written as a protest against Napoleon’s decree forbidding tomb inscriptions, it considers using the past as a refuge from the misery of the present and the darkness of the future.

He was appointed to the chair of Italian eloquence at Pavia and delivered a lecture urging his fellow countrymen to study literature to help both individual and national growth. Napoleon then issued a decree abolishing the chair of Italian eloquence at all universities.

When the Austrians arrived in Milan, Foscolo moved to Switzerland and then went to live in London, where he spent the last 11 years of his life mixing with high society and the greatest writers of the day. 

He died in poverty in Turnham Green, now part of London, in 1827. His tomb can still be seen in the Chiswick Old Cemetery.

In 1871 his remains were brought back to Italy by order of King Victor Emmanuel II and he was buried with great ceremony in the Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence .

The courtyard at Palazzo Bo, the main
building of Padua University
Photo: Sailko (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Travel tip:

The main building of Padua University, where Ugo Foscolo studied, is Palazzo del Bò in Via 8 Febbraio in the centre of Padua. The building used to house the medical faculty and you can take a guided tour of the building and see the lectern used by Galileo when he taught there between 1592 and 1610.


Travel tip:

The street named after the poet in Milan, Via Ugo Foscolo, links one side of the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II with Piazza del Duomo. Work began in 1865 to build the elegant, glass roofed Galleria, an arcade of shops and restaurants that links Piazza della Scala with Piazza del Duomo. Work on the Duomo began in 1386 but the magnificent church was not completed until the 19th century, when Napoleon, who was crowned King of Italy there, ordered the façade to be finished. 



More reading:

The Italian revolutionary who became a British knight

The politically astute poet who ruled an Italian state

The sonnet writer who satirised life in 19th century Rome

Also on this day:

1453: The birth of the poet Girolamo Benivieni

1577: The birth of Beatrice Cenci, the murderess who became a Roman heroine

1908: The birth of Amintore Fanfani, politician who proposed a 'third way'

(Picture credit: Padua University by Sailko via Wikpedia Commons)

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Giovanni Battista Moroni – artist

Portrait painter left visual record of a changing society

Moroni's portrait of Bernardo
Spini, a nobleman from his
home town of Albino

Giovanni Battista Moroni, who was considered one of the greatest portrait painters of the 16th century, died on this day in 1578 while working on a painting at a church just outside Bergamo in the northern region of Lombardy.

His wonderful legacy of portraits provides an illuminating insight into life in Italy in the 16th century, as he received commissions from merchants trying to climb the social ladder as well as from rich noblemen.

Moroni was born at Albino near Bergamo somewhere between 1510 and 1522 and went on to train under a religious painter from Brescia, Alessandro Bonvicino.

Although Moroni painted many acclaimed religious works, he became known much more for the vitality and realism of his portraits, for which he was once praised by Titian.

Some of Moroni’s work is in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence and the National Gallery in London but there are fine examples of Moroni’s work in the collection of the Accademia Carrara in Bergamo, such as The Old Man Sitting Down and the Portrait of Bernardo Spini.

One of Moroni’s finest religious works, the Coronation of the Virgin, can be seen in the church of Sant'Alessandro della Croce in Via Pignolo in Bergamo’s lower town.

Moroni’s unfinished painting of the Last Judgment can be seen in the church at Gorlago, just outside Bergamo, where he was working until just before his death on February 5, 1578.

Travel tip:

Bergamo is a fascinating historic city with two distinct centres. From the lower town you can see the beautiful upper town, the Città Alta, silhouetted against the sky. The upper town still has medieval buildings and towers, but the Venetians later built the impressive city walls and elegant palaces and fountains. At the heart of the upper town is Piazza Vecchia, said to be the most beautiful square in Italy, with the Colleoni Chapel, a stunning Renaissance building, nearby. There are plenty of interesting shops  and many excellent restaurants.

The magnificent facade of Bergamo's Accademia
Carrara, which houses a number of Moroni portraits

Travel tip:

You can see portraits by Moroni in Bergamo’s prestigious art gallery, Accademia Carrara. The magnificent palace just outside the Città Alta was built in the 18th century to house one of the richest private collections in Italy. It is the only Italian museum to be entirely stocked with donations and bequests from private collectors. Visitors can view works by the masters of the Venetian, Lombard and Tuscan Renaissances as well as great artists who came later, such as Lotto, Titian, Moroni, Rubens, Tiepolo, Guardi and Canaletto. Accademia Carrara, in Piazza Giacomo Carrara, is open Monday, Wednesday and Thursday from 10 am to 7 pm ; Friday from 10 am to 12 pm and Saturday and Sunday from 10 am to 8 pm . For more details visit www.lacarrara.it.

More reading:

Why Titian was a giant of Renaissance art

Cosimo I de' Medici and the origins of the Uffizi

How Bergamo painter Antonio Cifrondi captured images of 17th century life

Also on this day:

The Festival of Saint Agatha of Sicily

1964: The birth of footballer and coach Carolina Morace

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Giacomo Facco – composer

The forgotten talent of the musician from Padua

Giacomo Facco's music was
rediscovered in 1962

Giacomo Facco, a Baroque composer, was born on this day in 1676 in Marsango, a small town just north of Padova (Padua).

Highly regarded during his own lifetime, he was completely forgotten about until 1962 when his work was rediscovered by Uberto Zanolli, a musicologist.

Facco is believed to have worked as a violinist and a conductor and he is known to have been given a job in 1705 by the Viceroy of Sicily as a choirmaster, teacher and violinist in Palermo.

In 1708 he moved with the Viceroy to Messina where he composed The Fight between Mercy and Incredulity. In 1710 he presented a work dedicated to King Philip V of Spain, The Augury of Victories, in Messina Cathedral.

By 1720 it is known Facco was working in the Spanish court because his pay is mentioned in a report dating from that year. He is later named as clavichord master to the Spanish princes.

At the height of his success he was commissioned to compose an opera to celebrate the marriage of one of the princes in 1721.

He then seems to have fallen out of favour and was just employed as a violinist in the orchestra of the Royal Chapel until his death in Madrid in 1753.

The composer had earlier written 12 violin concertos under the title Pensieri Adriarmonici. Bright and buoyant, they are reminiscent of the music composed by his contemporary, Vivaldi. These concertos were discovered in a library in Mexico City by Uberto Zanolli in 1962 along with Facco’s birth certificate.  Since his remarkable discovery, Zanolli has put together a biography of Facco and a list of his known works.

Some of Facco’s solo cantatas, written using his own poetry, were presented at a concert in Mexico City in 1962, conducted by Zanolli.

But it is thought other music Facco wrote while working in Spain may have been destroyed in a fire in Madrid in 1734.

The gate into Castelfranco Veneto at
Via Francesco Maria Preti

Travel tip:

Facco was born and spent his early years in the hamlet of Marsango in the commune of Campo San Martino about 15 kilometres north of Padua in the beautiful countryside of the Veneto. Marsango lies between the cities of Treviso and Vicenza, with the walled city of Castelfranco Veneto just to the north.

Travel tip:

Messina, where Facco was employed by the Viceroy of Sicily, is in the north east corner of the island and has close ties with Reggio Calabria on the mainland. The cathedral where Facco’s music was presented in 1710 dates back to the 12th century but has had to be rebuilt twice because of suffering earthquake and fire damage.

Also on this day:

1667: The birth of painter Alessandro Magnasco

1875: The birth of patriotic campaigner Cesare Battisti

1892: The birth of playwright Ugo Betti

2014: The death of novelist Eugenio Corti

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