Cosimo de' Medici

Banker who founded the Medici dynasty

This portrait of Cosimo by Jacopo da Contormo
 can be viewed in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence

The first of the Medici rulers of Florence, Cosimo di Giovanni de' Medici, died on this day in 1464 in Careggi in Tuscany.

Cosimo had political influence and power because of the wealth he had acquired as a banker and he is also remembered as a patron of learning, the arts and architecture.

Cosimo, who is sometime referred to as Cosimo the Elder (il Vecchio) was born into a wealthy family in Florence in 1389. His father was a moneylender who then joined the bank of a relative before opening up his own bank in 1397.

The Medici Bank opened branches in Rome, Geneva, Venice and Naples and the Rome branch managed the papal finances in return for a commission.

The bank later opened branches in London, Pisa, Avignon, Bruges, Milan and Lubeck, which meant that bishoprics could pay their money into their nearest branch for the Pope to use.

In 1410, Baldassarre Cossa, who was on one side of a power struggle within the Catholic Church, borrowed money from the bank to buy himself into the office of Cardinal and in return put the Medici in charge of all the papal finances.   This gave the Medici family the power to threaten defaulting debtors with excommunication.

Cosimo and his younger brother Lorenzo took over the running of the bank from their father in 1420 and Cosimo established power over Florence using his wealth to control votes. He was described at the time as ‘king in all but name'.

The Villa Medici in Careggi near Florence, where
Cosimo died in 1464

Eventually his enemies had him imprisoned him in the Palazzo Vecchio for the crime of ‘failing to conquer Lucca’ but he managed to have his sentence changed to exile. He went to live in Padua and then to Venice, taking his bank with him.

When the order of banishment was lifted he was able to return to Florence, where effectively he was to govern the city for the next 30 years.

Cosimo worked to create peace in northern Italy by establishing a balance of power between Florence, Venice and Milan, which allowed for the development of the Renaissance.

The architects Brunelleschi and Michelozzo carried out Cosimo’s building projects in Florence and artists such as Ghiberti, Donatello and Fra Angelico were commissioned to produce works of art for him.

Cosimo also organised a methodical search for ancient manuscripts in Europe and the East and the books and documents procured by him are now housed in the Laurentian Library (Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana), which was built in a cloister of the Basilica di San Lorenzo.

Cosimo had married Contessina de' Bardi, who was from another wealthy banking family, in about 1415 and the couple had two sons, Piero and Giovanni.

On his death on 1 August 1464 Cosimo was succeeded by Piero, who later became the father of Lorenzo the Magnificent.

The Government of Florence awarded Cosimo the title Pater Patriae, Father of the Country, which is carved on his tomb in the Church of San Lorenzo.

Travel tip:

Cosimo died in 1464 at the Villa Medici at Careggi, in the hills above Florence. The villa had been purchased in 1417 by Cosimo’s father as a working farm to make his family self sufficient. Cosimo employed the architect Michelozzo to remodel it around a central courtyard overlooked by loggias. Cosimo’s grandson, Lorenzo, later extended the terraced garden and the shaded woods.

The interior of the Basilica of
San Lorenzo in Florence

Travel tip:

The Basilica of San Lorenzo, where Cosimo is buried, is in the centre of the market district and is one of the biggest churches in Florence. It also claims to be the oldest in the city as it dates back to 393. Cosimo’s father offered to pay for a new building to replace the 11th century Romanesque structure there at the time and commissioned Brunelleschi to design it. Michelangelo later designed the Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana to house the Medici family’s collection of manuscripts.

More reading:

How Cosimo II maintained the family tradition

Grand designs of Cosimo I


(Photo of Villa Medici by Sailko CC BY-SA 3.0)
(Photo of San Lorenzo Basilica by Stefan Bauer CC BY-SA 2.5)

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Antonio Conte - football coach

Southern Italian roots of the new boss of Chelsea

Antonio Conte, the Italian coach who
is Chelsea's new manager

Antonio Conte, the coach who led Italy to the quarter-finals of Euro 2016 and is now first team manager at Chelsea in the English Premier League, celebrates his 47th birthday today.

Formerly a hugely successful player and manager with Juventus, Conte was born on this day in 1969 in Lecce, the Puglian city almost at the tip of the heel of Italy.

As a midfield player for Juventus, he won five Serie A titles and a Champions League. He also played in the European Championships and the World Cup for the Italy national team.

After returning to the Turin club as head coach, he won the Serie A title in each of his three seasons in charge before succeeding Cesare Prandelli as Italy's head coach.

Conte hails from a close-knit family in which his parents, Cosimino and Ada, imposed strict rules, although as a child Antonio was allowed to spend many hours playing football and tennis in the street with his brothers, Gianluca and Daniele.

He began to play organised football with Juventina Lecce, an amateur team coached by his father, but it was not long before US Lecce, the local professional club, recognised his potential and offered him an opportunity.   Juventina received compensation of 200,000 lire - the equivalent of about €300 or £250 in today's money - plus eight new footballs.

Conte quickly moved up through the Under-15s and Under-20s teams and made his senior debut aged just 16 in 1986 after Lecce had won promotion to Serie A for the first time in their history.

Antonio Conte's played his first senior football
for his home town club, US Lecce

They were relegated after just one year and Conte's career was interrupted by a broken tibia in his left leg but he fought back, as did Lecce under coach Carlo Mazzone, returning to the top flight and finishing a respectable ninth in 1988-89, the season in which Conte scored his first Serie A goal.

The move north to Juventus came about in 1991 when coach Giovanni Trapattoni identified him as a prime target and the club paid Lecce seven billion lire, which would translate to a fee of around €6.1 million or £5.2 million today.

He remained with the bianconeri for 13 seasons, playing under just three coaches - Trapattoni, Marcello Lippi (twice) and Carlo Ancelotti - often as captain, usually in a central midfield role.  He was called up by Arrigo Sacchi to represent Italy in the 1994 World Cup in the United States, in which the azzurri finished runners-up to Brazil, and by Dino Zoff for the 2000 European Championships, in which they again reached the final, although Conte could not play because of injury.

As a coach, Conte had unsuccessful stints with Arezzo, Bari and Atalanta before winning promotion to Serie A with Siena in 2010-11, joining Juventus in 2011.  Regarded as a highly talented tactician and an astute man-manager, the only area in which he has yet to make a real impact as a coach is in the Champions League.

He has been married since 2013 to Elisabetta, although they have been a couple since 2004.  They met by chance at a bar in Corso Vinzaglio in central Turin where Conte was having coffee with one of his neighbours, who happened to be her father.

Travel tip:

Lecce, renowned for the extravagance of its Baroque architecture, is sometimes nicknamed the Florence of the South but has far fewer tourists, mainly because it is almost at the bottom of the heel of Italy and difficult to reach.  The ruins of a Roman amphitheatre are preserved in the city centre but most of the buildings are 17th century in origin, including the sumptuous Basilica di Santa Croce.

The Palazzo Madama in Turin's Piazza Castello

Travel tip:

Turin, the city of Juventus, is the capital 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, notably around Piazza Castello, where visitors can find the Royal Palace and the Palazzo Madama, which used to house the Italian senate.

More reading:

Marcello Lippi - World Cup winning coach

How Arrigo Sacchi changed Italian football

Dino Zoff - the World Cup's oldest winner


(Photo of Antonio Conte by Nicola Genati CC BY-SA 3.0)
(Photo of Palazzo Madama by Geobia CC BY-SA 4.0)

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Naples earthquake of 1626

Devastating tremor and tsunami killed 70,000

A 17th century painting shows the 1631 eruption of
Vesuvius just five years after the 1626 earthquake

The region around Naples, one of the most physically unstable areas of high population in the world with a long history of volcanic activity and earthquakes, suffered one of its more devastating events on this day in 1626.

An earthquake that it has been estimated would register around seven on the modern Richter scale struck the city and the surrounding area.

Its epicentre was about 50km out to sea, beyond the Bay of Naples and the island of Capri to the south, but the shock waves were strong enough to cause the collapse of many buildings in the city and the destruction of more than 30 small towns and villages.

A tsunami followed, in which according to some reports the sea receded by more than three kilometres (two miles) before rushing back with enormous force, towering waves engulfing the coastline.

In total, it is thought that approximately 70,000 people were killed by the quake itself and the tsunami.

Naples at the time was a thriving city, still under Spanish rule.  It had a population of around 300,000, which made it the largest port city in Europe and the second largest of all European cities apart from Paris, which had about half a million inhabitants.

It was enjoying a golden age in expansion, particularly at the more expensive end of the property market, with many luxury estates springing up in the Chiaia district to the north of the city.

Construction of the Royal Palace, the masterpiece of the late Renaissance architect Domenico Fontana, was almost complete.  Overlooking the Bay, the palace would for many years be the main residence of the Bourbon kings.

A typical fumarole at Solfatara in the
Campi Flegrei just outside Naples

However, bordered to the south by Vesuvius and to the north by the steaming, bubbling Campi Flegrei (Phlegraean Fields), the city was under constant threat from seismic activity.  In Naples alone, between 10,000 and 20,000 people were thought to have been killed on July 30, 1626.

Indeed, the 1626 quake came during one of several periods punctuated by deadly events.  There had been three earthquakes in one year in 1622, sparking a wave of activity that was perhaps behind the substantial eruption of Vesuvius that took place in 1631. It was the first of any consequence for four centuries, resulting in the deaths of between 3,000 and 6,000 people.

Another earthquake in 1693 claimed the lives of 90,000 in the wider region.  Earthquakes and eruptions were so frequent in the next century that 110,000 people were killed in one 75-year stretch between 1783 and 1857, equating to 1,500 every year.

There has not been an eruption of Vesuvius since 1944 and the last major earthquake to hit the region was in 1980, when a tremor measuring 7.2 on the Richter scale took place in the province of Avellino, its epicentre 85km east of Naples, with a death toll of 2,914.

Nowadays some three million people live in and around Naples and although the last few decades have been calm, seismologists say there is little reason to be complacent.

The façade of the Royal Palace in the centre of Naples

Travel tip:

Work began on the construction of the Royal Palace in Naples in the early 17th century.  The main part of the building, including the façade that opens on to the Piazza del Plebiscito, was completed by 1620 and additions were made over time, including the connecting Teatro San Carlo, the famous Naples opera house, which was opened in 1737.

Travel tip:

For a less strenuous volcanic experience than climbing Vesuvius, the volcanic crater Solfatara, just outside Pozzuoli, is a worthwhile alternative. Part of the vast Campi Flegrei, a volcanic area with a four-mile diameter, Solfatara is fascinating for its active emissions of volcanic ash that form piles of yellow tuff rocks and for the fumaroles releasing sulphorous steam.

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The birth of Benito Mussolini

Future dictator inspired by his father's politics

Mussolini saw the First World War
as an opportunity for Italy

Benito Mussolini, who would become Italy's notorious Fascist dictator during the 1920s, was born on this day in 1883 in a small town in Emilia-Romagna known then as Dovia di Predappio, about 17km south of the city of Forlì.

His father, Alessandro, worked as a blacksmith while his mother, Rosa was a devout Catholic schoolteacher.  Benito was the eldest of his parents' three children. He would later have a brother, Arnaldo, and a sister, Edvige.

It could be said that Alessandro's political leanings influenced his son from birth.  Benito was named after the Mexican reformist President, Benito Juárez, while his middle names - Andrea and Amilcare - were those of the Italian socialists Andrea Costa and Amilcare Cipriani.

Working in his father's smithy as a boy growing up, Mussolini would listen to Alessandro's admiration for the protagonists of the Italian unification movement, such as the nationalist Giuseppe Mazzini, and the military leader Giuseppe Garibaldi. But he also heard him speak with approval about the socialist thinker Carlo Pisacane and anarchist revolutionaries such as Carlo Cafiero and Mikhail Bakunin.

Alessandro's view would leave a lasting impression and, one way or another, shape the direction his son would eventually follow, although initially Benito saw himself as a traditional socialist.

Sent away to boarding school, Mussolini qualified as a schoolteacher but did not take up the profession, instead moving to Switzerland in order to avoid national service.  It was there that he first became politically active.

Mussolini in familiar pose as the
military dictator

He studied the ideas of the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, the sociologist Vilfredo Pareto, and the syndicalist Georges Sorel, who advocated the violent overthrow of capitalism and liberal democracy. He also found much that he approved of in the writings of the Marxist Charles Péguy.

Mussolini was twice expelled from Switzerland, once after being arrested in Berne for trying to foment a general strike and violent uprising, the second time for falsifying his papers in order to return.  He did in time manage to secure a legal way back into the country and studied at the University of Lausanne before taking advantage of an amnesty granted to those who had evaded national service and returning to Italy.

A condition of the amnesty was that he joined the army but once his two-year stint was complete in 1906 he became a leading figure in the Italian Socialist Party (PSI).

In the years that followed he would edit the left-wing newspaper Avanti and spend five months in jail following a riot he had helped organise in protest at Italy's invasion of Libya, which he denounced as "imperialist".

However, his position on Italy's involvement in armed conflict changed and he was expelled by the PSI because of his opposition to the party's neutral stance on the First World War.  He saw intervention as an opportunity to further the revolutionary aims of the left, particularly by overthrowing the Habsburg monarchies in Germany and Austria-Hungary.

By then, continuing to be influenced by his father's belief in nationalism and by Nietzsche's views on the merits of elitism, he began to lose faith in orthodox socialism, believing that national identity had become more important than class struggle in forging the kind of society that was central to his vision.

He now envisaged a brand of socialism in which the removal of class divides was still key but which also depended on strong, decisive leadership and which recognised culture, tradition, language and race as elements of a nation's identity that should be protected.  It was the beginnings of what would become known as Fascism.

Travel tip:

Predappio's embarrassment at being turned into a place of pilgrimage for neo-Fascists has been addressed by the town's Mayor, who has finally forged an agreement that the former regional headquarters of Mussolini's party, a dilapidated three-storey building in the centre of the town, is renovated as a musuem, not to pay homage to the former dictator - whose remains are buried in the local cemetery - but as a place of education and reflection.  The museum is due to open in 2019.

The Abbey of San Mercuriale dominates
Piazza Aurelio Saffi in Forlì

Travel tip:

The main square in Forlì, Piazza Aurelio Saffi, is named after the politician Aurelio Saffi, a radical republican who was a fervent supporter of the nationalist revolutionary Giuseppe Mazzini, one of the driving forces behind the Risorgimento and the unification of Italy in the 19th century.  There is a statue of Saffi in the square, which is dominated by the 12th-century Abbey of San Mercuriale and its 75-metre bell tower, one of the tallest in Italy.

More reading:

The death of Mussolini at the hands of the partisans

How Mussolini's Fascists came into being

Giuseppe Mazzini - hero of the Risorgimento

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