Marco Galiazzo - Olympic champion

First to win gold medal for Italy in archery

Marco Galiazzo

Marco Galiazzo, the first Italian to win an Olympic gold medal in archery, was born on this day in 1983 in Ponte San Nicolò, just outside Padua.

He won the men’s individual competition at the 2004 Games in Athens at the age of 21, defeating Great Britain’s Larry Godfrey 110-108 in the semi-finals before winning the gold medal match 111-109 against 42-year-old Hiroshi Yamamoto, of Japan. Galiazzo was only one when the veteran Yamamoto competed at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles.

Galiazzo was one of 10 Italian gold medal winners at the 2004 Olympics, in which Paolo Bettini won the men’s road race in the cycling competition and Stefano Baldini the men’s marathon.

Eight years later, at the London Games of 2012, Galiazzo won his second Olympic gold as part of the Italian team, alongside Michele Frangilli and Mauro Nespoli, that defeated the United States in the final of the team event at Lord’s Cricket Ground, where Frangilli’s 10 with the last arrow of the match clinched the title.

Marco Galiazzo in action

In between, at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, along with Nespoli and Ilario Di Buò, he had won the silver in the team event.

Galiazzo’s total of medals makes him the most successful Italian Olympic archer of all time and the only one to win two gold medals.

Encouraged by his father, Adriano, himself an archer and later Marco’s coach, he took up the sport at the age of 13 and achieved his first competitive success a year later at the Italian Youth Games.

A member of the Compagnia Arcieri Padovani team, he was selected for the Italian national team for the first time as a 16-year-old.

His achievements in his sport also include gold medals at the World archery championships and the World Cup, plus four European titles and two European indoor titles.

Galiazzo (centre) on the podium after winning the team
gold medal at the 2012 London Olympics

On the way to winning his World Cup gold in Copenhagen in 2009, Galiazzo and teammates Nespoli and di Buò set an Italian team record at a stage two match in Porec, Yugoslavia.

His gold in the World championships came in Las Vegas in 2012.

Since 2006, Galiazzo, who still lives in Padua, has been a member of the Italian air force sports section – the Centro Sportivo Aeronautica Militare – allowing him to practise full time.

Travel tip:

Ponte San Nicolò, which takes its name from the bridge crossing the Roncajette channel, part of the Bacchiglione river that connects with the Brenta, was formerly a thriving commercial centre, part of an inland port where boats would unload salt, linen and terracotta pottery among other goods. As well as Galiazzo, it is the birthplace, coincidentally, of another Italian Olympic champion, the rower Rossano Galtarossa, who won gold at the Sydney Olympics of 2000.

Prato della Valle is one of Padua's many highlights

Travel tip:

The city of Padua is especially notable for art treasures, in particular the magnificent frescoes by Giotto that adorn the walls of the Scrovegni Chapel and the frescoes by Titian in the Scuola di Sant’Antonio. A wealth of notable buildings and vibrant squares include the huge Basilica di Sant’Antonio with its seven cupolas, the vast Palazzo della Ragione with its three tiers of arches and the broad elliptical square Prato della Valle.

More reading:

How Luigi Baccali brought home Italy's first Olympic track gold

Gelindo Bordin - Italy's first Olympic marathon champion

Alberto Cova's 10k hat-trick

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1976: The birth of Andrea lo Cicero - rugby star turned TV presenter

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The Sack of Rome

Mutinous army of Holy Roman Empire laid waste to city

Imperial forces attack Rome

An army loyal to the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, laid siege to the city of Rome on this day in 1527, at the start of the Sack of Rome, a significant event in the conflict between Charles and the so-called League of Cognac that had profound implications for Rome’s wealth and power.

Rome at the time was part of the Papal States, who at the behest of Pope Clement VII had joined the League of Cognac – an alliance that included France, Milan, Florence and Venice – in an effort to stop the advance of the Empire, which had its centre of power in the Kingdom of Germany, into the Italian peninsula.

After the Imperial Army had defeated the French at Pavia in the Italian War of 1521-26, it would have been a logical step for Charles to march on Rome but the attack is said to have come about not through any planned strategy but after a mutiny among his troops, many of whom were hired mercenaries, after it became clear there were insufficient funds available to pay them.

Pope Clement VII, depicted by Sebastiano
del Piombo in 1531

Aware of the rich treasures they could seize if they stormed Rome and overthrew Clement VII, 34,000 Imperial troops, an army made up of Germans, Spaniards and Italians, demanded that their commander, Charles III, Duke of Bourbon, led them towards Rome.

They left Arezzo in Tuscany on April 20 and, with the army of Florence distracted by an uprising against the Medici, proceeded without too much resistance to the walls of Rome.

The walls were substantial physically but poorly defended. Under the command of Francesco Guicciardini, the city’s garrison numbered only 8,000 men, including the 2,000-strong Swiss Guard.

They had the advantage of artillery around the perimeter of the city but though the Duke of Bourbon was himself shot dead - legend has it by the sculptor Benvenuto Cellini - the ferocity of the Imperial soldiers overwhelmed the defending army, which crumbled rapidly. The invaders swept into the city, killing almost everyone they encountered, armed or otherwise. By sunset, Rome was under their control.

The Pope’s personal protection amounted to 189 of the Swiss Guard, who fought bravely on the steps of St. Peter’s Basilica. All but 42 were killed but they created enough delay to allow Clement VII to escape along a tunnel, the Passetto di Borgo, into the fortress of Castel Sant’Angelo.

There he was besieged as the pillage of the city began. The Protestant Landsknecht – the 14,000 strong German core of the Imperial troops – are said to have harboured a particular hatred for Catholic Rome and its Renaissance treasures. Churches and monasteries, as well as the palaces of prelates and cardinals, were looted and destroyed. The rampaging soldiers would spare lives and properties only in return for ransom payments.

Clement VII escaped to Castel Sant'Angelo along a secret
passage while the Swiss Guard fought on the steps of St Peter's

Meanwhile, on May 8, Cardinal Pompeo Colonna, a personal enemy of Clement VII, entered the city, accompanied by peasants seeking to avenge the devastation to their land by Papal armies.

Clement surrendered in June, agreeing to pay a huge ransom and hand over substantial territory to Charles V, who was said to be shocked by the brutal conduct of his troops but happily accept the advantage he had gained.

The defeat effectively marked the end of the Roman Renaissance, damaging the papacy's prestige.  An estimated 6,000 to 12,000 people were murdered and the population of Rome declined in the years following from 55,000 to 10,000.

The pillaging lasted nine months, ending when there was no one left to ransom and food supplies ran out.  Ironically, many Imperial soldiers themselves died from from diseases caused by the large number of unburied bodies in the city.

Today, in commemoration of the Sack and of the Swiss Guard's bravery in protecting Clement VII, May 6 is the designated day each year for new recruits to the Swiss Guard to be sworn in.

The view across Rome from the Gianicolo hill

Travel tip:

The Gianicolo – or Janiculum – is one of the hills outside the walls of ancient Rome from which the 1527 attack was launched. Today it provides one of the best locations to enjoy a scenic view of the centre of the city and its domes and bell towers. The Gianicolo itself is the home of the church of San Pietro in Montorio, built on what was once thought to be the site of St Peter's crucifixion. A small shrine, the Tempietto, designed by Donato Bramante, marks the supposed site of Peter's death. The hill is also the location of The American University of Rome, Pontifical Urban University, and Pontifical North American College. Other notable buildings include the Palazzo Montorio, residence of the Ambassadors of Spain, and the Villa Lante al Gianicolo, designed in 1520 by the Mannerist painter and architect Giulio Romano.

The swearing-in ceremony for the papal Swiss Guard
takes place in the courtyard of San Damaso on May 6

Travel tip:

The protection provided to the pope by the Swiss Guard goes back to a 15^th century alliance between Pope Sixtus IV and the Swiss Confederacy, which in turn resulted in the Swiss supplying a contingent of 200 mercenaries to be based permanently at the Vatican at the request of  PopeJulius II. The defence of the pontiff in 1527 remains their most significant military action. The loss of the 147 guards killed on the steps of St Peter’s is marked each year with a ceremony in the San Damaso courtyard inside the Apostolic Palace, open to members of the public, at which the year’s input of new recruits to the Guard are sworn in.

More reading:

Francesco Guicciardini - statesman, military leader, historian

How Rome was founded

Preacher Girolamo Savonarola's 'war' on the Renaissance

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1895: The birth of silent movie star Rudolph Valentino

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The Expedition of the Thousand

Garibaldi's Spedizione dei Mille launched from Genoa

Giuseppe Garibaldi had the support of
King Victor Emmanuel II

The Expedition of the Thousand, the military campaign to unite Italy led by the soldier and revolutionary Giuseppe Garibaldi, was launched on this day in 1860.

The campaign, in some ways the climax of the Risorgimento movement, began in response to an uprising in Sicily, when Garibaldi set sail from Genoa, with a makeshift army of volunteers, hoping his support would enable the rebels to overthrow the Bourbon rulers of the island.

The greater purpose, though, was to achieve another step towards his ultimate goal, which he shared with his fellow nationalist revolutionary, Giuseppe Mazzini, and which was supported by King VictorEmmanuel II of Sardinia-Piedmont and his prime minister, Camillo Benso di Cavour, that of creating a united Italy.

The revolutionary leader in Sicily, Francesco Crispi, had all but guaranteed that substantial numbers of Sicilians would fight on the side of Garibaldi’s troops.

Some accounts suggest Garibaldi, who had commanded military campaigns in Europe and South America and was a charismatic figure, had wanted to lead his followers into an attack on the French occupiers of Nice, his home city, but was persuaded to turn his attention to Sicily by Cavour, who feared a war with France would result.

A painting by an unknown artist shows soldiers boarding a boat
on the shore at Quarto with the steamships in the background

Whatever the truth of that story, after another revolutionary, Nino Bixio, had requisitioned two steamships from the Rubattino shipping company in Genoa, Garibaldi summoned his volunteers to nearby Quarto, where they were to embark.

The exact number who had enlisted is not known, although 1,089 is the number often quoted.  They are said to have included 434 from Lombardy, 194 from Venetia, 156 from Genoa, 78 from Tuscany, around 45 from each of Sicily and Naples and 33 foreigners. The cities of Genoa and Bergamo were thought to have supplied one third of the force between them.

Nearly all were said to be from middle-class backgrounds. Many were teachers, writers or traders. There were 150 lawyers and law students, 100 physicians, 50 engineers, 20 chemists, ten painters and sculptors, three priests and 30 naval officers.  Armed with outdated muskets, the group were poorly equipped, but their simple uniform of red shirts and grey trousers helped foster a strong sense of unity.

Italy at the time was made up of five states - the Austrians in Venetia, the Papal States, the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia (which by then included Tuscany), the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, and San Marino.

The Piemonte, one of the two steamships that carried
Garibaldi's men from Genoa to Sicily 

Piedmont-Sardinia and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, which essentially encompassed all territories south of Rome, were by far the largest and it was felt that a new state uniting both could justifiably be called the Kingdom of Italy.

After renaming the two steamships Il Piemonte and Il Lombardo, Garibaldi took to the seas on the evening of May 5. On reaching Sicilian waters, he was almost ambushed by the Bourbon fleet but, with cover provided by the British Royal Navy, who had ships in the area monitoring the activities of the French, his armies landed at Marsala on May 11.

Garibaldi’s force was tiny compared with the number of soldiers at the Bourbon leader King Francis II’s disposal, yet in the face of public support for the invaders, who disliked their rulers and hoped Garibaldi would seize land from the wealthy and give it to the poor, the Bourbon defences at Marsala quickly crumbled. 

After the Thousand moved into Palermo, the city came under heavy bombardment from the Bourbon general, Ferdinando Lanza, and 600 civilians were killed. But those who survived never wavered in their resolve and Lanza eventually surrendered the city to Garibaldi.

A painting by Sebastiano de Albertis shows the famous
meeting at Teano between Garibaldi (left) and the King

After proclaiming himself the ruler of Sicily on behalf of King Victor Emmanuel II, Garibaldi led his army across the Straits of Messina and headed north towards Naples.  All along their route, the red shirts were hailed as heroes and resistance was so sparse that Garibaldi was able to arrive in the city by train.

In the meantime, the Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont invaded the Papal States, conquering Umbria and Marche and reducing the reach of the pope’s territory to just Lazio and the Vatican. In the decisive Battle of the Volturnus in October, Garibaldi’s army had grown to 24,000 men, although it was only with the help of the Sardinian army that the 25,000-strong Neapolitan Army was defeated.

The end of the expedition is traditionally seen as the meeting in Teano in northern Campania between Victor Emmanuel II and Garibaldi on October 26, when Garibaldi formally handed over the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies to the monarch, whom he declared to be the King of Italy.  This conclusion disappointed such as Mazzini, who wanted Italy to become a republic, but Garibaldi believed that unity was the primary requirement. Following the historic ‘handshake’, Garibaldi returned to his home in Caprera, a small island off the northern coast of Sardinia.

Baroni's sculpture at Quarto is a monument to the expedition

Travel tip:

The former fishing village of Quarto al Mare, now a residential area to the east of Genoa, was renamed Quarto dei Mille in 1911 in honour of Garibaldi’s expedition. The road that runs along the sea front is called Via V Maggio (May 5 Street) and passes, on either side of the small inlet from which the boats carrying his men set sail, a couple of commemorative statues, a sculpture by Eugenio Baroni erected in 1915 and opened by the writer and patriot Gabriele D’Annunzio, and a more recent obelisk by Fabrizio Pezzoli, which marks the exact rock from which the Red Shirts climbed into rowing boats to take the to the steamships anchored off the shore.  The nearby Villa Spinola, where the participants gathered, now houses a Garibaldi museum.

The remains of the Roman theatre at Teano, near Caserta

Travel tip:

Teano in Campania, scene of Garibaldi’s meeting with King Victor Emmanuel II, is a town in the province of Caserta, north of Naples, that is built on the site of the important Roman city of Teanum Sidicinum. Roman remains include a theatre, once one of the largest in Italy, some statues and Roman houses. Other sights in the town, which sits at the foot of the extinct Roccamonfina volcano, include a 12^th century cathedral, in front of which is a portico containing two red granite sphinxes that originated in a pagan temple on the same site.  There is a statue in bronze by Oreste Calzolari depicting the handshake on horseback of the monarch and the revolutionary, although this currently resides in Piazza Mino da Fiesole in Fiesole, outside Florence. 

More reading:

Giuseppe Mazzini - ideological inspiration behind Risorgimento

How Camillo Benso Cavour became Italy's first prime minister

Kingdom of Italy proclaimed

Also on this day:

1998: Mudslides kill 161 in Campania

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Anthony Martin Sinatra - father of Frank

Sicilian who became a professional boxer in New York

Anthony Sinatra had 30 fights as a professional boxer

Saverio Antonino Martino Sinatra, who at various times was a fireman, a professional boxer and the owner of a bar, was born on this day in 1894 in Lercara Friddi, a mining town in Sicily, about 70km (44 miles) south-east of the island’s capital, Palermo.

Usually known as Antonino, after emigrating to the United States he married Natalie Garaventa, a girl from near Genoa who lived in his neighbourhood in New York City.  They set up home in New Jersey and had a son, whom they christened Francis Albert, who would grow up to be better known as Frank Sinatra, one of the most popular entertainers of all time.

Lercara Friddi today is a town of between 7,000 and 8,000 inhabitants, which at the time of Antonino’s birth was an important centre for the mining of sulphur.  His father, Francesco, worked there as a shoemaker and married Rosa Saglimini. They had seven children, although two of them were believed to have died during an outbreak of cholera.

Early in Antonino’s life, Francesco decided to join the growing number of Sicilians who believed their prospects of escaping a life of poverty in their homeland were slim and after sailing to Naples boarded a ship bound for New York.

Hoboken, New Jersey, where Frank Sinatra was born

New York already had many shoemakers but Francesco found work in a pencil factory, sending money home so that his family could eventually join him.  After first sending her eldest children, Isidore and Salvatore, to make the journey unaccompanied, Rosa followed just before Christmas in 1903 with a then nine-year-old Antonino and his sisters, Angelina and Dorotea, on board the SS Città di Milano.

It was a tough life for the family at first but Lercara Freddi was at the heart of Sicily’s Mafia country. Not far away were the towns of Corleone and Prizzi, notorious Cosa Nostra strongholds. Francesco was happy he had left that world behind and life improved when they saved enough money for Rosa to open a small grocery store in Little Italy.

Antonino adopted the Americanised name of Anthony Martin Sinatra.  After reaching working age, he initially followed his father’s trade as a shoemaker.  Powerfully built, he was handy in a fight and developed a second income as a prize fighter. He might have fought under the name of 'Tony the Shoemaker',which was the nickname he had among friends, but he chose to fight as Marty O’Brien, passing himself off as Irish because Italians at the time were considered inferior athletes.

Frank Sinatra (right) began his career with The Hoboken Four

His earnings in the ring enabled him to give up his day job but his boxing career was abruptly curtailed when he broke his wrist after 30 professional fights. By then he had met Natalie, also known as ‘Dolly’, with whom he eloped to New Jersey after her family, proudly Ligurian, refused to countenance their daughter’s marriage to a semi-literate Sicilian boxer and disowned her.

They lived in Monroe Street, Hoboken, in a largely Italian neighbourhood, where Frank was born in 1915.  Anthony’s hopes of finding work as a merchant seaman were dashed because he suffered from asthma but, encouraged by Natalie, he applied to become a fireman and was taken on by the Hoboken Fire Department in 1927, eventually attaining the rank of captain.  

In time, Natalie followed the example of Anthony’s mother by opening a shop, supplementing the family’s income so that they could afford a bigger apartment. Eventually, her husband was able to retire from the fire service and open a bar, which he called ‘Marty O’Brien’s.’  

The church of Santa Maria della Neve in Lercara Friddi

Travel tip:

The name Lercara Friddi is thought to be derived in part from the Arabia ‘al kara’ meaning quarter, and the Sicilian dialect word ‘friddi’ meaning cold. The 18^th century church of San Giuseppe, the nearby church of Santa Maria della Neve and the church of San Alfonso are attractive buildings. Apart from the Sinatra family, the town was home to the anti-Fascist politician Andrea Aprile, a leading figure in the Sicilian independence movement in the 1940s, and of the Mafia gangster Lucky Luciano, who was controversially freed from prison in the United States in order to help the Allied invasion in 1943.

Lumarzo sits on a hillside in Liguria

Travel tip:

Frank Sinatra’s mother, Natalie, came from Rossi, a frazione of the village of Lumarzo in Liguria, about 15km (9 miles) inland, to the east of Genoa. Since 2008, the village has organised an event, entitled "Hello, Frank!", as a musical tribute from Ligurian artists and guests to the actor and singer, who in the course of his career sold more than 150 million records.

More reading:

Salvatore 'Lucky' Luciano - crime boss recruited by Allies in Second World War

Joe Petrosino - policeman from Campania who fought for the good name of Italians in New York

Vito Antuofermo - farmer's son who conquered world in the boxing ring

Also on this day:

1655: The birth of Bartolomeo Cristofori, inventor of the piano

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