Romano Prodi – politician

Il Professore became prime minister and European Commission president

Romani Prodi was twice Italy's prime minister

Romano Prodi, who has twice served as prime minister of Italy, was born on this day in 1939 in Scandiano in Emilia-Romagna.

A former academic, who was nicknamed Il Professore by the Italians, Prodi was also president of the European Commission from 1999 to 2004.

Prodi graduated from the Catholic University in Milan in 1961 and studied as a postgraduate at the London School of Economics.

After moving up to become professor of economics at Bologna University, Prodi served the Italian government as minister for industry in 1978.

In 1996 after two productive stints as chairman of the Institute for Industrial Reconstruction, Prodi set his sights on becoming Italy’s prime minister and built a centre-left base of support known as the Olive Tree coalition.

While Silvio Berlusconi used television to campaign, Prodi went on a five-month bus tour round Italy, calling for more accountability in government. His approach appealed to the voters and his coalition won by a narrow margin.

Prodi was appointed prime minister of Italy for the first time on May 17, 1996.

Silvio Berlusconi twice lost out to
Prodi in Italian elections

He remained prime minister for two years and four months, during which time he privatised telecommunications and reformed the government’s employment and pension policies. He significantly reduced the budget deficit to facilitate the country’s acceptance into the European Monetary Union, a task that had seemed impossible before he took office.

When he lost support from left-wing members of his coalition following disputes over the country’s proposed budget, he had to resign in October 1998.

The following year Prodi was appointed president of the European Commission after the entire 20-member commission was forced to resign following charges of widespread fraud and corruption.

During his five-year term, the EU expanded beyond its western European roots to include Malta, Cyprus and eight other countries.

After his term as president of the European Commission ended in 2004, Prodi returned to Italian politics and campaigned to become prime minister again in 2006, pledging to improve the country’s ailing economy and withdraw troops from Iraq.

Prodi with his wife, Flavia Franzoni

Prodi’s centre-left coalition won a narrow victory over Silvio Berlusconi’s centre-right group. Berlusconi initially contested the results but resigned in May 2006.

Prodi’s second term in office lasted one year and eight months until he resigned in January 2008 after losing a confidence vote.

Later that year, Prodi was selected to become president of the African Union-UN peace keeping panel. He is currently serving as the UN Special Envoy for the Sahel.

Prodi has received 20 honorary degrees from institutions in Italy and throughout the rest of the world.

Prodi shares his home town of Scandiano with the biologist
Lazzaro Spallanzani, whose statue in the main square

Travel tip:

Scandiano, where Romano Prodi was born, is in the province of Reggio Emilia in Emilia-Romagna. The town was founded in 1262 when a defensive castle was built and houses later developed round it. Scandiano was ruled by the princes of Este between 1645 and 1796. The current holder of the title of Marquis of Scandiano is Prince Lorenz of Belgium, Archduke of Austria-Este, who is also the Duke of Modena. Since the 1960s the town has been an important centre for the production of tiles.

Travel tip:

Romano Prodi and his wife, Flavia, had two sons, Giorgio and Antonio. The family still lives in Bologna, where Prodi used to teach at the University. Bologna has the oldest university in the world, which was established in 1088 and attracted popes and kings as well as students of the calibre of Dante, Copernicus and Boccaccio. The oldest university building, the Archiginnasio, is open to the public from Monday to Saturday between 9 am and 1 pm, and is admission free.

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Danilo Gallinari – basketball player

Giant from Lodi province who plays in America’s NBA

Danilo Gallinari joined New York Knicks
in 2008 after entering the draft

Danilo Gallinari, the only Italian-born player currently active in America’s National Basketball Association, was born on this day in 1988 in Sant’Angelo Lodigiani in Lombardy.  

Only nine Italian-born players have participated in the NBA – America’s premier basketball league – since its formation in 1946.  

Gallinari, who stands 6ft 10ins tall, has played for six NBA teams, the latest of which is Boston Celtics.

Previously he had played for New York Knicks,  under the coaching of Mike D’Antoni, is an American-born former player who is now an Italian citizen, the Denver Nuggets, Los Angeles Clippers, Oklahoma City Thunder and Atlanta Hawks.  

Gallinari, whose father, Vittorio, played professional basketball for teams in Milan, Pavia, Bologna and Verona, began his career in 2004 with Casalpusterlengo, a third-level Italian team from a town about 25km (15 miles) from his home in Sant’Angelo Lodigiano.  

He moved up a tier in 2005 by joining Armani Jeans Milano and then Edimes Pavia, where in 2006 he was named best Italian player in the Italian League Second Division, despite missing half the season through injury.  Read more…

Danilo Gallinari, representing the
Italian national team in 2010

This earned him a move to his father’s old club, Olimpia Milano, in which he was named as the First Division’s best player under the age of 22 in his first season and topped the league’s overall efficiency ratings in 2007-08.

Gallinari also represented Olimpia Milano in the elite EuroLeague – basketball’s equivalent of the Champions League in football – scoring 27 points in his final game of the 2007-08 campaign against Maccabi Tel Aviv.

His move to the NBA came in 2008, when he took advantage of an escape clause in his Olimpia Milano contract that permitted him to take up any opportunity to play professionally in the United States and entered himself for the NBA draft.

New York Knicks acquired him as the sixth draft pick and gave him a two-year contract.

Gallinari’s time in the NBA has been bedevilled by injuries yet his performances have improved year on year.

He missed a large part of his debut 2008-09 season with back problems and, after sustaining an anterior ligament injury that ended his 2012-13 season at Denver early, he had to sit out the entire 2013-14 season as he underwent rehabilitation.

Gallinari, who plays as a small forward/power forward, was also sidelined for the final 22 games of the 2015-16 season with Denver because of an ankle injury.

He was the biggest acquisition of the summer for Los Angeles Clippers when he joined them in 2017.

Gallinari’s statistics, however, demonstrate how he has become an increasingly valuable player when fit.  In 2009, he set a career-high points haul of 30 for New York against Philadelphia 76ers; his current career-high stands at 47, which he recorded in a double-overtime loss to Dallas Mavericks for Denver Nuggets in 2015.

UPDATED: August 2022.

A sunlit Piazza della Vittoria

Travel tip:

Both Sant’Angelo Lodigiano and Casalpusterlengo are municipalities in the province of Lodi, an historic small city on the banks of the River Adda that was the property of the Visconti family and the Sforzas in the 15^th and 16^th centuries, when it had great value as the central town of a richly fertile agricultural area, which it is to this day.  Its prosperity was the consequence of a system of artificial rivers and channels, work on which began in the 13^th century, that was created to irrigate what had previously been arid and unusable land. The heart of the city is the beautiful Piazza della Vittoria.

The Mediolanum Forum, home of Olimpio Milano

Travel tip:

The Olimpio Milano team, sometimes known as Emporio Armani Milano, play their home matches at the Mediolanum Forum, an indoor sports and concert arena with seats for 12,700 spectators, situated in the Assago suburb of Milan and now accessible by a direct Metro service from the centre of the city.  Assago is also home to the Italian headquarters of Nestlé.

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Gerry Scotti - television show host

One-time politician who presented Chi vuol essere milionario?

Gerry Scotti

Gerry Scotti, the host of Italy’s equivalent of Who Wants to be a Millionaire? and one of the most familiar faces on Italian television, was born on this day in 1956 in Camporinaldo, an agricultural village in Lombardy.

The presenter, whose career in television began in the 1980s, was also a member of the Italian Chamber of Deputies between 1987 and 1992, having won the Lombardy 1 district in the Milan college for Bettino Craxi’s Italian Socialist Party.

But he is best known as the face of Chi vuol essere milionario?, which he fronted when it launched in Italy in 2000 and continued in the role after Italy’s entry into the single currency in 2002 required the show to make a subtle change of name.

Originally Chi vuol essere miliardario – billionaire – the title was changed to milionario – millionaire – with a new top prize of 1,000,000 euro replacing the 1,000,000,000 lire of the original.

Scotti continued to host the show until it aired for the last time in Italy in 2011, at which time he held a Guinness World Record for the number of editions presented of the show, which was created for the British network ITV in 1998 and was subsequently exported to 160 countries worldwide.

The son of a printworker at Corriere della Sera in Milan, Scotti – whose real first name is Virginio - studied law at university but dropped out to pursue a career as a radio DJ, working for a number of stations in Milan before being hired as a launch presenter for Radio Deejay, a national network based in Milan.

Scotti is nicknamed Uncle Gerry by his fans

He fronted Deejay Television, the first music video programme on Italian television, before moving into full-time TV work with the commercial Mediaset networks, working mainly for Canale 5.

Apart from Millionaire, Scotti has been the host of a number of other popular quiz shows, notably the word game Passaparola. He also fronted The Money Drop and Avanti un altro.

In the entertainment category, his credits include La sai l'ultima?, La Corrida, Paperissima and Buona Domenica. 

He also co-hosted the satirical current affairs programme, Striscia la Notizia, and has been on the judging panels of the talent shows Italia’s Got Talent and Tú sí que vales.

The winner of 10 Telegatto awards – the prize sponsored by the Italian TV listings magazine TV Sorrisi e Canzoni – and a Telegatto Platinum prize for career achievement, Scotti has presented almost 100 different TV shows, appearing in almost 600 prime time editions and more than 6,000 daytime slots.

Known as Uncle Gerry by his fans, he has also acted in around a dozen films, mainly for television, and two sitcoms. He has made commercials on behalf of around a dozen companies.

He was married for 18 years to Patrizia Grosso, with whom he has a son, 25-year-old Eduardo, and has for several years been the companion of Gabriella Perino, a divorcee who is the mother of one of Eduardo’s former schoolfriends.

In 2009, Scotti wrote a letter published in Corriere della Sera supporting a proposal that the Catholic Church soften its position towards divorce, which traditionally it does not recognise.

The Palazzo Pubblico in Piacenza dominates the
central Piazza dei Cavalli

Travel tip:

Camporinaldo is an agricultural hamlet, part of the municipality of Miradolo Terme, a small town of 3,500 people about 25km (16 miles) east of Pavia and 55km (34 miles) south-east of Milan, on the way to Piacenza, which was given its name – meaning ‘pleasant place’ – by the Romans.  Piacenza’s industrial suburbs may bely that description but its well-preserved historical centre includes an imposing Gothic town hall – the Palazzo Pubblico, which dominates the central Piazza dei Cavalli, also notable for its equestrian statues.

The elaborately carved tomb of St Augustine in the
Basilica of San Pietro in Ciel d'Oro in Pavia

Travel tip:

The city of Pavia once rivalled Milan as the regional capital and was the seat of the Kings of Lombardy for more than 200 years from 572 to 774.  It was once also known as the ‘city of 100 towers’ although only a few remain.  Among the attractions of this historic university city is the Romanesque basilica of San Pietro in Ciel d’Oro, which contains an elaborately carved ark housing the remains of St Augustine, a convert to Christianity who became one of the religion’s most influential theologians.

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Barbara Strozzi – composer

One of few 17th century women to have her own music published

Bernardo Strozzi's painting The Viola da
Gamba Player, is said to be Barbara Strozzi

The talented singer and composer Barbara Strozzi was baptised on this day in 1619 in the Cannaregio district of Venice.

Strozzi had been recognised by the poet and librettist Giulio Strozzi as his adopted daughter. It was thought at the time she was likely to have been an illegitimate daughter he had fathered with his servant, Isabella Garzoni.

Giulio Strozzi encouraged his adopted daughter’s musical talent, even creating an academy where she could perform to an audience. She became one of only a few women in the 17th century to publish her own compositions.

The Academy of the Unknown - Accademia degli Incogniti - was a circle of intellectuals in Venice that met to discuss literature, ethics, aesthetics, religion and the arts. They were supporters of Venetian opera in the late 1630s and 1640s. Giulio Strozzi formed a musical sub-group, Academy of the Like-Minded, Accademia degli Unisoni, where Barbara Strozzi performed as a singer and even suggested topics for discussion.

In addition to her vocal talent she showed herself to be a gifted composer and so her father arranged for her to study with the composer, Francesco Cavalli.

When she was older it was rumoured she was a courtesan, although this could have been made up by male contemporaries who were jealous of her talent.

Tiberio Tinelli's portrait of Giulio Strozzi,
which hangs in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence

A portrait of her by Bernardo Strozzi, who was no relation to her, has been interpreted as highlighting her activities both as a musician and as a courtesan.

It is believed three of her four children were fathered by the same man, Giovanni Paolo Vidman, who was a patron of the arts and a supporter of early opera.

Barbara Strozzi launched her career as a composer in 1644 with the publication of a volume of madrigals. Over the next 20 years she published eight collections of music.

Strozzi was said to be the most prolific composer of printed, secular, vocal music in the middle of the 17th century, even compared with male composers as well as female. She is also known to have composed just one volume of sacred songs.

Barbara Strozzi was appreciated for her poetic lyrics as well as for her ability to compose music.

Nearly three quarters of her music was written for the soprano voice and although she may have written many of her own lyrics, some are by her father, Giulio.

Barbara Strozzi died in Padua in 1677 at the age of 58 and she is believed to have been buried at the Church of the Eremitani in the city.

The Church of Santa Sofia seen from Strada Nova in Venice

Travel tip:

Barbara Strozzi was baptised soon after her birth in the Church of Santa Sofia in the Cannaregio district of Venice. The church is in Strada Nova, which runs parallel with the Grand Canal. It is believed to date back as far as 886 but was rebuilt in the 16th and 17th centuries. The church was closed in 1810 while Venice was under Napoleonic rule but was later purchased by a Venetian and was re-consecrated and reopened as a church in 1836.

The Church of the Eremitani in Padua

Travel tip:

Barbara Strozzi is believed to have been buried in the Church of the Eremitani in Padua, an Augustinian Church that dates back to the 13th century in Piazza Eremitani, close to the centre of Padua. It became one of the most important churches in Padua and was decorated by the greatest masters working in the city over the years. But during the Second World War, the church and its beautiful frescoes suffered a lot of damage from bombing raids.

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