Victor Emmanuel II

The first King to rule over a united Italy

Victor Emmanuel II was
proclaimed king in 1861

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 from Rome he entered the city 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.

In 1852 Victor Emmanuel appointed Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour as Prime Minister of Piedmont-Sardinia, who turned out to be a shrewd politician and masterminded his campaign to rule over a united Italy.

Giuseppe Garibaldi's Expedition of the Thousand
had the support of Victor Emmanuel II

Victor Emmanuel soon became the symbol of the Risorgimento, the Italian unification movement in the 19th century.

He supported Garibaldi’s Expedition of the Thousand in 1860 which resulted in the fall of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and gave him control over the southern part of the country.

After he was proclaimed King of Italy, Victor Emmanuel II chose the Palazzo del Quirinale in Rome as his main residence.

Victor Emmanuel died in Rome in 1878 and was succeeded as King of Italy by his son Umberto I. He was buried in a tomb in the Pantheon in Rome.

The Palazzo Reale in Turin was built in the 16th century
 and modified by the Baroque architect Filippo Juvarra

Travel tip:

Turin, Victor Emanuel II's birthplace,  is the capital city of the region of Piedmont in the north of Italy. It has had a rich history linked with the Savoy Kings of Italy and there are many impressive Renaissance, baroque and rococo buildings in the centre of the city. 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.

The Palazzo del Quirinale in Rome was hosen by
Victor Emmanuel as his main residence

Travel tip:

The impressive Palazzo del Quirinale in Rome, at one end of Piazza del Quirinale, was the summer palace of the popes until 1870 when it became the palace of the Kings of the newly unified Italy. Since 1947 it has been the official residence of the President of the Republic of Italy.



More reading:


Giuseppe Mazzini - the Risorgimento's idealogical inspiration

Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour - the political architect of Italian unification

Garibaldi and the Expedition of the Thousand

Also on this day:

1835: The birth of astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli, whose discoveries provoked speculation about life on Mars


1972: The accidental death of publisher Giangiacomo Feltrinelli

(Picture credits: Palazzo Reale by Geobia; Quirinale by MarkusMark; via Wikimedia Commons)


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Ligabue - record-breaking rock star

Musician and writer once dubbed 'Italy's Springsteen'

Luciano Ligabue
 (Photo: Elena Torre CC BY-SA 2.0)

Unlike his contemporary, Eros Ramazzotti, the Italian rock musician Luciano Ligabue - born on this day in 1960 - has had to content himself with fame limited largely to his home country. 

Although popular in France, the singer-songwriter from Correggio, near Reggio Emilia, generally known as simply Ligabue, never managed to achieve true international recognition.

Yet such is his popularity in Italy that a Ligabue concert held on a stage erected on Reggio Emilia's airfield in 2005 attracted an audience of 180,000, a European record for a paid-for event headlined by a single artist.

The artist, who has also enjoyed success as a film director and a writer, has played before audiences of more than 110,000 at the Giuseppe Meazza football stadium in Milan -- the home of Internazionale and AC Milan -- and has twice repeated the so-called Campovolo event in Reggio Emilia.

Watch a video clip of Ligabue's popular song 'Certe Notti'

A concert there in 2011, limited for security reasons to 110,000, was a sell-out, and a third concert, staged in September last year to celebrate Ligabue's 25 years in the music business, sold 150,000 tickets, setting another record as the most lucrative single music concert in Italian history, with proceeds of around €7 million.

Although he grew up with a love of music, it was some years before Ligabue was able to make a living from his passion. As a young man, he flitted from one job to another.  At different times he worked in agriculture and the steel industry, hosted a radio show, kept a shop and was a trainee accountant, but never saw himself settling for a career in anything but music.

Ligabue performing at a concert at the Arena di Verona
in September 2008 (Photo: Lo Scaligero CC BY-SA 3.0)

He took his first steps when he founded the amateur band Orazero in 1987. A break came when his fellow Emilian singer-songwriter, Pierangelo Bertoli, included one of Ligabue's songs, Sogni di Rock 'n' Roll (Rock 'n' Roll Dreams), in a new album.   The following year, Bertoli introduced him to producer Angelo Carrara, and he completed an album of his own, entitled Ligabue, which was released in May 1990.

The most recent album, Giro del Mondo, was released in 2015, bringing his total so far to 18.  His most famous songs include Balliamo sul mondo (Let's Dance on the World), Ho Perso le Parole (I've Lost the Words) and the most successful of all, Certe Notti (Certain Nights), which was voted as "Italian song of the 1990s" by the readers of a popular music magazine.

He displayed his versatility as an artist by venturing into cinema in 1998. His first movie, Radiofreccia, a semi-autobiographical story of a local radio station, was well received by the critics and won a number of awards. Ligabue also composed the soundtrack, which was released as an album.

Ligabue's short story collection, Fuori e Dentro il Borgo (Outside and Inside the Village) also won awards, and he has written a science fiction novel La Neve se ne Frega (The Snow Doesn't Give a Damn) and a collections of poems Lettere d'Amore nel Frigo (Love Letters in the Fridge).

A new collection of short stories, Scusate il Disordine (Excuse the Mess), is due out in May.

He once had the reputation as Italy's equivalent of Bruce Springsteen, a musician interested in human rights and with strong political ideals.  In the late 1990s he was elected to the communal council in his home town of Correggio, standing for the Italian Communist Party, although he is no longer actively involved in politics.  In 1999, he joined with fellow rock musicians Jovanotti and Piero Pelu in recording a protest song against the war in Kosovo.

The inner courtyard of the Palazzo dei Principi
in Correggio (Photo: Paolo Picciati CC BY-SA 3.0)

Travel tip:

The town of Correggio, situated a little over 20km to the north-east of Reggio Emilia, has its origins in the Middle Ages.  It began to grow in the 11th century, when a castle was built and later, within its walls, the impressive Palazzo dei Principi. Controlled by the same feudal family for 600 years, it fell into the hands of the Dukes of Modena and many new buildings in neoclassical style were built during the 18th and 19th centuries.  Some beautiful palaces and churches can be seen in Corso Mazzini and Piazza Quirino, one example being the Collegiate Church of Saints Michael and Quirino.  Correggio was also home to the Renaissance artist Antonio Allegri (1489-1534), widely known as Correggio. There is a monument dedicated to him in Piazza Quirino.

Correggio hotels by Booking.com

Wheels of Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, which
is thought to originate in Reggio Emilia

Travel tip:

The city of Reggio Emilia is reckoned to be the home of Italy's world famous hard cheese, Parmigiano Reggiano, which is thought to have originated in the commune of Bibbiano, in the Reggio Emilia province.  It is also credited with being the area of Italy from which the country adopted the tricolore as the national flag, with evidence that a short-lived 18th century republic, the Repubblica Cispadana, had a flag of red, white and green.  There are a number of notable buildings, including the Basilica della Ghiara and the 10th century Basilica di San Prospero.

Find hotels in Reggio Emilia with Tripadvisor

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Gabriele D’Annunzio – writer and patriot

Military hero influenced Mussolini with his distinctive style

Gabriele D'Annunzio: writer and military
hero, pictured in the 1930s

Poet, playwright and political leader Gabriele D’Annunzio was born on this day in 1863 in Pescara in Abruzzo.

He is considered to be the leading writer in Italy of the late 19th and early 20th centuries as well as being a military hero and a political activist. Some of his ideas and actions were believed to have influenced Italian Fascism and the style of the dictator, Benito Mussolini.

D’Annunzio was the son of a wealthy landowner and went to university in Rome. His first poetry was published when he was just 16 and the novels that made him famous came out when he was in his twenties.

At the age of 30 he began a long liaison with the actress Eleonora Duse and started writing plays for her. But his writing failed to pay for his extravagant lifestyle and he had to flee to France in 1910 because of his debts.

After Italy entered the First World War, D’Annunzio returned and plunged into the fighting, losing an eye during combat while serving with the air force. He became famous for his bold, individual actions, such as his daring flight over Vienna to drop thousands of propaganda leaflets and his surprise attack on the Austrian fleet with power boats when they were moored at Buccari Bay in what is now Croatia.

Eleonora Duse, the actress with
whom D'Annunzio had a long affair

In 1919, with about 300 supporters, he occupied the port of Fiume, now Rijeka, whose population was mostly Italian. D’Annunzio believed it belonged to Italy but the Italian Government and the Allies were proposing to incorporate it into the new state of Yugoslavia.

He ruled Fiume as a dictator until December 1920. Some of his slogans and the tactics he used while he was leader there were later copied by Mussolini.

After Italian forces made him abdicate he retired to his home at Gardone Riviera to write .In 1922 he was pushed out of a window by an unknown assailant but, although badly injured, he survived the fall.

He was given the hereditary title of Principe di Montenevoso by King Victor Emmanuel III in 1924.

Next to his house he built a stadium, Il Vittoriale degli Italiani, to display his torpedo boat and the aircraft in which he flew over Vienna. A mausoleum was built there after his death in 1938 to contain his remains.

The amphitheatre at Il Vittoriale degli Italiani, the stadium
D'Annunzio built next to his home overlooking Lake Garda

Travel tip:

Il Vittoriale degli italiani, The Shrine of Italian Victories, is an estate in the hillside above the town of Gardone Riviera, overlooking Lake Garda in the province of Brescia. D’Annunzio began planning the estate in 1921 with architect Giancarlo Maroni. Jutting out of the hillside is the cruiser, Puglia, its bow pointing symbolically in the direction of the Adriatic, as though ready to conquer the Dalmatian shores. Now a national monument, the estate houses a military museum and library and is a popular tourist destination.

Gabriele D'Annunzio's former house in Pescara is now a
museum dedicated to the writer's life

Travel tip:

The birthplace of Gabriele D’Annunzio in Corso Manthonè in Pescara is now the Museo Casa Natale Gabriele D’Annunzio. The house at number 116, where he spent his childhood, displays furniture, documents and photographs illustrating the writer’s life. It is open to visitors every morning from 9 am to 1.30 pm. For more information, click here.

Pescara hotels by Booking.com

More reading:

The founding of Mussolini's Fascist Party

The abdication of Victor Emmanuel III

Why Eleonora Duse is seen as one of Italy's greatest acting talents

Also on this day:

1501: The birth of doctor and botanist Pietro Andrea Mattioli

1921: The birth of Fiat patriarch Gianni Agnelli


(Picture credits: Amphitheatre by BlueSky2012; museum by RaBoe001; via Wikimedia Commons)

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Torquato Tasso – poet

Troubled Renaissance writer came back to Sorrento

Torquato Tasso, as depicted by a
German magazine in 1905

Torquato Tasso, who has come to be regarded as the greatest Italian poet of the Renaissance, was born on this day in 1544 in Sorrento.

Tasso’s most famous work was his epic poem Gerusalemme Liberata (Jerusalem Delivered) in which he gives an imaginative account of the battles between Christians and Muslims at the end of the first crusade during the siege of Jerusalem.

He was one of the most widely read poets in Europe and his work was later to prove inspirational for other writers who followed him, in particular the English poets Spencer and Byron. 

The house where Tasso was born on 11 March, 1544 is in Sorrento’s historic centre, a few streets away from the main square, Piazza Tasso, in Via Vittorio Veneto.

It now forms part of the Imperial Hotel Tramontano, where the words for the beautiful song, Torna a Surriento, were written by Giambattista De Curtis while he was sitting on its terrace in 1902.

Tasso travelled about in Italy constantly during his 51 years but came back to Sorrento towards the end of his life to visit his beloved sister Cornelia, at a time when he was deeply troubled with mental health problems.

The statue of Torquato Tasso
in Bergamo's Piazza Vecchia

The poet is also immortalised in the northern city of Bergamo in Lombardy by a large statue that stands in front of Palazzo della Ragione in Piazza Vecchia in the upper town.

Tasso was the son of a Bergamo nobleman, Bernardo Tasso, who was also a poet. He spent two periods only in his father’s native city, but is known to have written about Bergamo with affection.

While his father was resident poet at the Ducal Palace in Urbino, Torquato studied alongside Francesco Maria della Rovere, the heir to the Duke. He was later sent to study law in Padua but chose to write poetry instead.

Tasso was to spend many years in Ferrara at the Castle owned by the Este family where he fell in love with a lady in waiting and wrote love sonnets to her.

He suffered from the jealous behaviour of the other courtiers, which led to him developing a persecution mania and suspecting he was going to be poisoned. Eventually he escaped and made his way to Sorrento to visit his sister in her house in the historic centre between the main street and the sea.

After some further difficult years during which Tasso was confined to a madhouse by his patron, the Duke of Urbino, and later wandered from city to city without settling, he was invited to Rome by the Pope.

Tasso died in Rome in 1595 when he was just about to be crowned poet laureate by Pope Clement VIII.

Sorrento's Piazza Tasso

Travel tip:

Although Tasso travelled all over Italy during his life, he was born in Sorrento and the main square has been named after him. Piazza Tasso is right at the hub of Sorrento, in the middle of the main shopping street, Corso Italia, and looking out over Marina Piccola, Sorrento’s port. Surrounded by bars and restaurants, the square has stops for the local buses and a taxi rank. It is also the resting place for the horses that pull the carriages that can be hired for sightseeing.

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The Caffè del Tasso in Bergamo was
renamed in honour of the poet

Travel tip:

Nearly 100 years after Tasso’s death, a statue of him was erected in a corner of Piazza Vecchia in Bergamo’s historic upper town. The bar next to it subsequently changed its name to Caffè del Tasso. Dating back to at least 1476, the bar would have been known during Tasso’s life as Locanda delle Due Spade (Two Swords Inn.) In 1681 when the statue of the poet was erected, the bar’s name was changed to Al Torquato Tasso Caffè e Bottiglieria (Torquato Tasso Café and Wine Shop).

More reading:

Dante Alighieri and the Divine Comedy

Petrarch - the poet who inspired the Italian language

How Giambattista De Curtis was captivated with beauty of Sorrento

Also on this day: 

1847: The birth of wartime politician Sidney Sonnino


1851: Verdi's Rigoletto performed for first time

1924: The birth of mental health pioneer Franco Basaglia

Selected books:

Gerusalemme Liberata, full English translation


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