Roberto Baggio - football icon

Azzurri star regarded as Italy's greatest player

Roberto Baggio pictured after his world
record transfer to Juventus

The footballer Roberto Baggio, regarded by fans in Italy and around the world as one of the game's greatest players, was born on this day in 1967 in Caldogno, a small town situated about 10km (6 miles) north of Vicenza in the Veneto.

Baggio's career spanned 22 years, most of them spent at the highest level, with Fiorentina, Juventus, Bologna, both Milan clubs and, finally, Brescia, winning the Serie A title twice, the Coppa Italia and the UEFA Cup.  He played in three World Cups - in 1990, 1994 and 1998 - and achieved the unique distinction among Italian players of scoring at all three.

He scored 318 goals all told, the first Italian for 50 years to top 300 in his career.  Yet he spent almost the whole of his active playing days battling against injury.  Over the course of his career, he had six knee operations, four on his right knee and two on the left, and often could play only with the help of painkillers.

His fans believe that without his injuries, Baggio would have been placed in the same bracket as Pele, Diego Maradona and Lionel Messi as the best players in history.  Italy's most famous football journalist, the late Gianni Brera, said Baggio was the greatest Italian player he ever saw, better than both Giuseppe Meazza and Gianni Rivera.

Baggio prepares to take his fateful
penalty at the 1994 World Cup

Those supporters held him in such reverence they gave him the nickname il Divin' Codino - the Divine Ponytail - on account of the hairstyle he wore for most of his career, of his conversion to Buddhism, and because to them he was a football god.

Baggio's career was almost finished before it had really begun when he suffered his first serious knee injury at the age of 18, playing for his first club, Lanerossi Vicenza, in Serie B.

He barely played for the next two years and required extensive surgery.  The injury came two days before he was due to finalise his transfer to Serie A club Fiorentina and several doctors predicted he would not play again, thanks to the damage done to the anterior cruciate ligaments and the meniscus of his right knee.

Yet Fiorentina stuck by him, funded the cost of two operations and were ultimately rewarded with performances of the exquisite brilliance that defined his career and identified him as the complete player, a creative midfielder who could set up a goal for a teammate with the perfect pass, but also a dribbler with the guile and trickery of the greatest wingers and a finisher as deadly as the finest strikers.

In Italy he was categorised as a fantasista, the kind of player every coach dreams of if he has any romance in his veins, the kind of player capable, to use a description Italians would understand, of "inventing the game" with a moment of sublime and unpredictable skill.

When he moved to Juventus in 1990, the £8 million fee made him at the time the most expensive footballer in the world.

Baggio at the 1990 World Cup finals in Italy,
where he announced himself as a star

It is hardly any wonder that his supporters despair of the fact that he is remembered all too often for the moment in his career when it all went wrong, when he missed his penalty in the shoot-out at the end of the 1994 World Cup final in the United States, handing the trophy to Brazil.  It was one of only eight penalties Baggio failed to convert from a total of 79 in his career.

Yet the picture of Baggio, head bowed, suddenly lost and alone among the 95,000 people present at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, became the image of the tournament, symbolic of an heroic failure.  Baggio had dragged his nation to the final almost singlehandedly by scoring five of their six goals in the knock-out stages. He was, as usual, defying injury - playing in the final with painkilling injections and a heavily strapped thigh after suffering a hamstring tear - yet at the critical moment fate turned against him and his kick went over the bar.

For all the strength of his faith - and he credits Buddhism with helping him through his darkest moments - Baggio confessed that the penalty miss haunted him for many years afterwards, because he had not been able to deliver the dream for his teammates but also because it felt wrong that he would be remembered for something negative.  In fact, by its very longevity, his career had been a triumph against the odds, given the bleak prognosis he was given at only 18 years old.

His fans prefer to remember a seemingly endless list of brilliant goals and spend many hours debating which might be called the best, given that he scored so many of all types, from superbly placed free kicks and perfectly executed volleys to delicate lobs and wonderful mazy dribbles.

Robert Baggio during a recent television
documentary reflecting on his career

The most famous goals, inevitably, are those he scored for Italy, such as the one with which he announced himself on the world stage against Czechoslovakia in Rome in the 1990 World Cup finals in his home country, a run from the half-way line full of feints, dips and swerves, capped with a clinical finish.

Others prefer the two he scored against Bulgaria in a one-man show in the semi-final in 1994 at the Giants Stadium in New York.

His own favourites include a perfect lob from the edge of the penalty area towards the end of his career, playing for Brescia against Atalanta in Serie A.

Although born into a large Catholic family, Baggio became a Buddhist on New Year's Day 1988, his conversion a response to the despair and pain he endured during his long period of injury while with Fiorentina.  He prays and meditates daily and claims the religion, to which he was introduced by a friend, made him see life as a challenge to his inner strength.

In 1989, he married Andreina, the daughter of a neighbour in Caldogno he had known since he was 15. They have three children, a daughter, Valentina, and two sons, Mattia and Leonardo, the latter named after one of his heroes, Leonardo da Vinci.

He has a home in Argentina, where he is a supporter of the Boca Juniors club from the Italian neighbourhood of La Boca in Buenos Aires, and often visits Japan through his Buddhist links.

Since finishing his playing career he has spent some time coaching with the Italian Federation and a lot of time involved with charity work, raising money for research into motor neurone disease (also known as ALS) and on behalf of the United Nations, for whom he was active in raising money to fund hospitals, generate help for the victims of the Haiti earthquake, and to tackle bird flu.  His support for the Burmese pro-democracy movement and its imprisoned leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, contributed to Baggio being named 2010 Man of Peace by the World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates.

The Basilica Palladiana in the centre of Vicenza

Travel tip:

Vicenza is always associated with Andrea Palladio, the city's most famous resident, and no visit should miss out the Teatro Olimpico, which he wanted to create as a Roman theatre inside a medieval building and which was completed, after his death, by Vincenzo Scamozzi, the designer responsible for stage sets giving the illusion of three dimensions.  The city is notable too, of course, for its rich collection of Palladian villas, as well as churches containing paintings by Giovanni Bellini and Paolo Veronese among others.  Away from art and architecture, Vicenza is a city with a wealth of fine restaurants and chic bars and comes to life from about 6pm, with bars serving the traditional aperitivi - vast, free buffets from which customers buying a drink can help themselves at the start of an evening on the town, or simply on the way home from work.

Hotels in Vicenza from Expedia

Travel tip:

Although Brescia, where Roberto Baggio ended his career, is a wealthy city thanks in the most part to its industrial past, there are sights worth seeing for travellers not put off by the somewhat scruffy streets and downmarket shops around the railway station.  The ruins of a Roman forum can be found at Tempio Capitolino, there are two cathedrals, one 150 years old, the other dating back to pre-Renaissance times, and the castle, which holds a museum of the Risorgimento, has its origins in pre-Roman times and has been fortified a number of times, most notably by the Venetians in the 16th century.

Hotels in Brescia from Hotels.com

More reading:

Arrigo Sacchi - coach who steered Italy to the 1994 World Cup final

How Azeglio Vicini's bid to win the World Cup for Italy on home soil ended in heartbreak

When Marco Tardelli's scream became the symbol of Italy's 1982 World Cup triumph

Also on this day:

1455: The death of early Renaissance painter Fra Angelico

1564: The genius Michelangelo dies in Rome

1983: The birth of tennis star Roberta Vinci


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Giordano Bruno - 'martyr of science'

Dominican friar condemned as a heretic

Giordano Bruno's beliefs brought him into conflict
with the church from an early age

Giordano Bruno, a Dominican friar, philosopher and cosmological theorist who challenged orthodox Christian beliefs in the 16th century, died on this day in 1600 when he was burned at the stake after being found guilty of heresy.

The principal crimes for which he was tried by the Roman Inquisition were the denial of several core Catholic doctrines.

Bruno challenged the divinity of Christ, the virginity of Mary, and the transubstantiation - the idea that Eucharistic offering of bread and wine in Mass becomes the body and blood of Christ.

He also questioned the idea of God as a holy trinity of divine persons - the Father, the Son (Jesus) and the Holy Spirit.  His own belief was closer to pantheism, which contends that a God is an all-encompassing divine presence rather than existing in some personal form with human traits.

This idea formed part of his cosmological theory, in which he supported the idea that everything in the universe is made of tiny particles (atoms) and that God exists in all of these particles.

Yet this was in contradiction of the established Catholic wisdom, as was his support for the idea advanced by the Renaissance astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus that Earth revolved around the sun, rather than the other way round.

The 17th century perception of the universe, with the
Earth at its centre, that Bruno challenged

Bruno took this one step further by suggesting that the sun, which Copernicus placed at the centre of the universe, was in fact merely one of an infinite number of suns in an endless universe, each of these suns being surrounded by planets, and that Earth was likely to be only one of many planets inhabited by living beings.

After many years essentially on the run, Bruno was imprisoned in Rome in 1592, subjected to periodic torture and finally condemned to die by immolation, the sentence carried out in Campo de' Fiori, where he was stripped naked, with his tongue tied down to prevent any heretical outbursts, and suspended upside down before a fire was lit beneath him.

Bruno had been born Filippo Bruno in the town of Nola in what his now Campania, on the north-eastern slope of Vesuvius. He moved to Naples to study at the age of 14 and entered the monastery of San Domenico Maggiore at the age of 17, taking the name of Giordano.

He remained there for 11 years but in that time became known for questioning accepted beliefs.  He removed images of the saints from the walls of his room, keeping only a crucifix, took an interest in Arab astrology and obtained copies of banned texts, which he encouraged others to read.  He consistently expressed doubts about areas of the Catholic faith that seemed to be contradicted by science and logic.

The statue of Girodano Bruno in Rome's
Campo de' Fiori, where he was killed

On learning that an indictment was being prepared against him in 1576, he fled Naples, casting off his monk's habit in the hope that he would be less easily recognised.

For the next 15 years, he travelled around Europe, initially in what is now northern Italy, where he spent time in Genoa, Turin, Venice, Padua and Bergamo, and then in Switzerland, France, England and Germany.

He taught at a number of universities but his views often brought him into conflict with his superiors and inevitably meant his postings were short-lived.  In London he courted controversy by his association with magicians and astrologers.

His most settled time was in Paris, where he made money by demonstrating his immense powers of memory, which he honed using techniques that were ahead of his time and appeared to give him superhuman qualities.

Bruno's fatal mistake, it turned out, was to accept an invitation from Giovanni Mocenigo, a wealthy Venetian, to return to Venice as his personal tutor.

Mocenigo had been impressed by some of Bruno's writings, published while he was in Paris, and had heard of his prodigious memory, but after a while the two fell out, Mocenigo accusing Bruno of paying too much attention to his wife and of failing to pass on his most effective memory tricks.

A relief of the trial of Bruno by the Roman Inquisition
forms part of Ettore Ferrari's moment in Rome

Bruno gave notice of his intention to quit and planned to move to Germany but Mocenigo locked him in an attic, threatening to hand him to the Inquisition if he did not reveal the secrets behind his feats of memory.

He refused to do so and Mocenigo promptly summoned the authorities, not only handing over Bruno but a three-page letter alleging various acts of blasphemy and heresy.  The Inquisition required the testimony of more than one individual to mount a successful prosecution. No one came forward to support Mocenigo's claims but it seems Bruno damned himself by admitting that he had always harboured doubts over Jesus's claim to be the son of God.

Although he retracted the beliefs attributed to him in Mocenigo's statement, Bruno remained in custody long enough for the authorities in Rome to apply successfully for his extradition.  He was imprisoned in Castel Sant'Angelo for the next eight years and regularly invited to recant but refused to budge on most of his beliefs, challenging Cardinal Robert Bellarmine, the chief Inquisitor, to prove that he was wrong.

Years after his death, he was hailed as a martyr of science and revered for standing up to the power of the papacy.

Travel tip:

In the spot in the Campo de' Fiori where Giordano was executed there now stands a monument to him in the form of a statue created in 1889 by Ettore Ferrari, the Grand master of the Grande Oriente d'Italia, the Masonic jurisdiction of Italy, who were strong supporters of the unification of Italy over the previous Papal rule of Rome. The statue shows Giordano dressed in his monk's habit but wearing a defiant expression on his face.  Each year, on the anniversary of his death, the statue becomes a site of pilgrimage for groups of Masons, atheists and pantheists, for whom Giordano has become a cult hero.

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The church of San Domenico Maggiore can be found in the
square of the same name, just off Spaccanapoli in Naples

Travel tip:

The church of San Domenico Maggiore, founded by the friars of the Dominican Order, is located in the square with the same name off Via Benedetto Croce, a section of the street known as Spaccanapoli. In the centre of the square is an obelisk topped by a statue of Saint Dominic, founder of the Dominican Order, erected after the plague of 1656.  The monastery annexed to the church was the original seat of the University of Naples.

Stay in Naples with Booking.com

More reading:

How Galileo Galilei was placed under house arrest for supporting belief that sun was at the center of the universe

Why Girolamo Savanarola was hanged and burned at the stake

What led to Antonio Moscheni becoming a well-known name in India

Also on this day:

1653: The birth of musician and composer Arcangelo Corelli

1796: The birth of opera composer Giovanni Pacini

1916: The birth of actor Raf Vallone

(Picture credits: Giordano statue by Georges Jansoone; via Wikimedia Commons)

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Valentino Rossi - motorcycle world champion

Rider from Urbino among his sport's all-time greats

Valentino Rossi is still chasing his 10th world
championship title at the age of 38

Valentino Rossi, the motorcycle racer whose seven 500cc or MotoGP world titles have established him as one of the sport's all-time greats, was born on this day in 1979 in Urbino.

Only his fellow Italian, Giacomo Agostini, the eight-times world champion, has more 500cc or MotoGP titles than Rossi, whose total of 88 race victories in the premier classification is the most by any rider.

Across all engine sizes, he has been a world champion nine times, behind only Agostini (15) and Spain's Ángel Nieto, who specialised in 50cc and 125cc classes.  Britain's Mike Hailwood and Italy's 1950s star Carlo Ubbiali also won nine world titles each.

Still competing at the highest level even at 38 years old, Rossi has not won the world title since 2009 but he has been runner-up for the last three seasons and will attempt to reclaim the crown from Spain's Marc Márquez when the 2017 season begins next month.

The two riders represent the dominant manufacturers in MotoGP, Marquez riding for Honda and Rossi, for whom this will be his 18th season in the class, for their Japanese rivals Yamaha.

Valentino Rossi in action on the Yamaha YXR-M1
on which he won the 2005 MotoGP world title

Rossi came from a motorcycling family, his father Graziano having competed on the grand prix circuit himself between 1977 and 1982. He won three races in the 250cc category in 1979, when he finished third in the overall classification.

When Valentino was still a child, the family moved to Tavullia, a small town between Urbino and Pesaro, on the Adriatic coast

Graziano's career was ended by an accident and Valentino's mother, Stefania, concerned for her son's safety, encouraged him to race on four wheels rather than two and his first love was karting.

However, after trying out in mini-motos it quickly became clear where his talent would take him after he was regional champion in 1992 at the age of 13.

The next few years saw him quickly rise through the ranks of road racing. After winning the Italian 125cc championship in 1995, when he also finished third in the 125cc European championship, he was given a ride in the world championship the following year.

Rossi (centre) in action on his way to winning
the 2009 MotoGP world title

By 1997 he was world champion, the youngest in history in the 125cc class, storming to 11 race victories for Aprilia.  Moving up to 250cc class, it took Rossi only two seasons to conquer the world at that level too, winning the title in 1999, again for Aprilia.

The pattern continued when he joined forces with Honda in the 500cc class. Runner-up in his first season, he again won the world title at just the second attempt, in 2001 becoming the final 500cc world champion before the launch of MotoGP in 2002.

By then without doubt the best rider on the planet, Rossi proceeded to win the first four MotoGP world titles, making history after his second win for Honda in 2003 by retaining the crown after his switch to Yamaha in 2004, the first rider in the history of the sport to win back-to-back premier class races for different manufacturers.

By winning nine out of 16 races, he gave Yamaha their first title for 12 years, fully justifying their decision to break the bank in order to get their man, signing him up on two-year contract reportedly worth $12 million. The money was too much for Honda and ended the romantic notion that Rossi might join the Italian team, Ducati.

Rossi dominated the 2005 season as well, this time winning 11 races and helping Yamaha celebrate their 50th anniversary by winning the manufacturers' and team titles.

Rossi signing autographs during the 2015 season

In 2011, Rossi did eventually satisfy the Italian fans by joining Ducati, by which time he had two more world titles under his belt in the 500cc/MotoGP class, bringing his total to seven. But his two seasons with the Bologna-based team were barren ones, yielding not one race victory and only three finishes on the podium.

He returned to Yamaha for the 2012 season and though he has yet to clinch the 10th world title he craves, his three runner-up positions suggest he is still very much a contender.

Rossi, who tested for the Ferrari Formula One team in 2006 before deciding he would stick with two wheels, is one of the world's highest paid sportsmen.  Fiercely protective of his private life, Rossi lived for a time in Milan before moving to London, where the high concentration of wealthy celebrities enabled him to live without quite the same level of attention as at home.

Nowadays, he is back in Italy, living in a secluded property not far from his family.  Although he has had a number of relationships, he remains single, the one constant love of his life being the Internazionale football team.

Awarded an honorary degree by the University of Urbino in 2005, he is said to enjoy his nickname on the circuit of il Dottore - the Doctor.

UPDATE: Some 28 years since his first competitive rides, Rossi finally retired from the pursuit of glory on two wheels at the end of the 2021 MotoGP season. He now races sports cars in the GT World Challenge series, in which he notched his first victory at Misano on the Adriatic coast of Italy in 2023, driving a BMW M4 GT3. In his personal life, he became a father in 2022 when his partner, Francesca Sofia Novello, gave birth to their daughter, Giulietta.

The ducal palace in Urbino

Travel tip:

Urbino, a relatively small hill town in Le Marche, is an important place in the cultural history of Italy. Enclosed within defensive walls, it has been granted UNESCO World Heritage status for representing 'a pinnacle of Renaissance art and architecture,' The principal tourist site is the palace built there by the military leader Duke Federico da Montefeltro, who maintained a court in Urbino in the 15th century. The palace houses the National Gallery of Le Marche.  From Piazza della Repubblica at the centre of Urbino, the Via Vittorio Veneto leads to the Ducal Palace, while in the opposite direction, the Via Raffaello leads past the house where the great Renaissance painter and architect Raphael was born.

Hotels in Urbino by Booking.com

The Teatro Rossini in Pesaro, the
birthplace of the opera composer

Travel tip:

Pesaro is a thriving holiday resort with many of the characteristics of seaside towns on the Adriatic coast, boasting a long, sandy beach lined with innumerable hotels. It is popular with Italian visitors in particular, with foreign tourists more likely to chose Rimini, 40km (25 miles) up the coast. Pesaro also has a significant cultural tradition, mainly due to it being the birthplace of the great opera composer, Gioachino Rossini, whose memory is honoured with an opera festival staged in August every year.

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More reading:

How Giacomo Agostini won 122 races and 15 world titles

Marco Simoncelli - a great talent snuffed out in tragic accident

How Bruno Ruffo became Italy's first world motorcycle champion

Also on this day:

1740: The birth of printer and publisher Giambattista Bodoni

1907: The death of poet Giosuè Carducci

1918: The birth of designer Achille Castiglioni

1935: The birth of Morricone's wordless vocalist Edda dell'Orso

1970: The birth of footballer Angelo Peruzzi

(Picture credits: Main Rossi picture by Hanson K Joseph; 2005 Yamaha by ozzzie; 2009 action by Robert Scoble; Rossi signing by Uppsalo; ducal palace by Il conte di Luna; Teatro Rossini by Accurimbono; all via Wikimedia Commons)

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Destruction of Monte Cassino Abbey

Historic monastery flattened in Allied bombing raid

An American B17 bomber shortly after
releasing its payload over Monte Cassino

The Abbey of Monte Cassino, established in 529 and the oldest Benedictine monastery in the world, was destroyed by Allied bombers on this day in 1944 in what is now acknowledged as one of the biggest strategic errors of the Second World War on the Allied side.

The Abbey was attacked despite an agreement signed by both sides with the Vatican that the historic building would be respected as occupying neutral territory.

But Allied commanders, who had seen their infantrymen suffer heavy casualties in trying to advance along the Liri valley, the route of the main highway between Naples and Rome, were convinced that the Germans were using the Abbey, which commands sweeping views of the valley, at least as a point from which to direct operations.

This perception was reinforced by a radio intercept, subsequently alleged to have been wrongly translated, which suggested a German battalion had been stationed in the Abbey, ignoring a 300-metre area around it that was supposed to be out of bounds to soldiers on both sides.

What remained of the abbey after four hours of sustained
bombing by American planes had stopped

Knowing that attacking a historic and religiously sensitive target would divide public opinion, particularly among their Catholic populations, military sources in Britain and the United States leaked details of their suspicions to the newspapers, who obligingly printed stories that seemed to justify the plan. On Valentine's Day, 1944, leaflets were fired towards the Abbey and the nearby town of Cassino to warn residents and monks of what was coming.

The raid began at 9.24am the following day as the Abbey was bathed in wintry morning sunshine.  It continued for more than four hours in what was the biggest sustained attack on a single building of the entire war and, many have contended, the greatest aesthetic disaster of the conflict.

Fortunately, many of the art treasures contained in the Abbey had already been removed to safety in Rome by two far-sighted German officers, including paintings by Titian, El Greco and Goya, along with tens of thousands of books and manuscripts. They had been transferred to the Vatican in more than 100 truckloads the year before, although some did end up in Germany.

Parts of the abbey were almost completely destroyed,
although many art treasures had been removed

But nothing could be done to save the frescoed walls of the building itself.  In all, 229 American bombers, arriving in wave after wave, dropped 1,150 tons of high explosives and incendiaries, reducing the entire top of the 488 metre (1,600 feet) mountain to a mass of smouldering rubble.

The 79-year-old Abbot, Gregorio Diamare, escaped, along with the other monks, some of whom hid in the underground vaults. But 230 refugees given shelter inside the Abbey were killed.  There were no German casualties.  The German positions above and below the Abbey, outside the neutral zone, were seemingly untouched.  The information passed on from the radio intercept was wrong.  No German troops were inside the building, nor had been, although it was more than two decades before the mistake was fully acknowledged.

To make matters worse, the bombardment created for the Germans a superb defensive position among the ruins.

There had been a plan for Allied troops to storm the site in the aftermath of the bombing but communications between the Air Force commanders and the Army on the ground were poor and it is thought the raid was launched to take advantage of good weather with no consideration of the readiness of the follow-up plan.

As it was, essential supplies and equipment had not reached the valley and some of the soldiers who were ready to attack were forced to withdraw after stray bombs hit their positions.

As a result, the Germans were able to take control of the ruined site and create the strategic stronghold the Allies had thought they were destroying.

The Abbey of Monte Cassino after it had been rebuilt
in the 1950s following the original plans

Pope Pius XII made no public comment about the destruction of the Abbey but his Cardinal Secretary of State, Luigi Maglione, denounced it as "a colossal blunder, a piece of a gross stupidity."

The Allies did eventually capture Monte Cassino but it took them until May 18, when soldiers from the Polish II Corps planted a Polish flag among the ruins, the only remaining Germans being those who lay wounded.  However, the cost was high, Allied casualties numbering 55,000 from a total of four assaults, compared with 20,000 on the German side.

Travel tip:

After the Second World War, the Abbey of Monte Cassino was painstakingly rebuilt based on the original plans, paid for in part by the Vatican and in part by what could be raised in an international appeal.  Today, it is again a working monastery and continues to be a pilgrimage site, housing as it does the surviving relics of St. Benedict and St. Scholastica. It also serves as a shrine to the 183,000 killed in the area around it.

Hotels in Cassino by Booking.com

The Commonwealth Cemetery in Cassino with the abbey
on top of the mountain in the background

Travel tip:

There are two major war cemeteries close to Monte Cassino. At the Cassino War Cemetery, some 4,271 Common- wealth servicemen killed are buried or commem- orated.  The graves of more than 1,000 Poles and 200 Belarusians can be found within a separate Polish Cemetery, including that of General Wladyslaw Anders, who commanded the Polish force that finally captured Monte Cassino.

More reading:

How Italy entered the Second World War

Mussolini's last stand

Alcide de Gasperi begins to rebuild Italy

Also on this day:

1564: The birth of Galileo Galilei

1898: The birth of comic actor Totò

1910: The birth of circus clown Charlie Cairoli

1927: The birth of papal candidate Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini

Books:

Monte Cassino: Ten Armies in Hell, by Peter Caddick-Adams

(Picture credits: rebuilt Abbey by Radomil; Cassino Cemetery by Amiens984; via Wikimedia Commons)

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