Monica Vitti - actress

Star of Antonioni classics also excelled in comedy roles

Monica Vitti made her name playing
enigmatic characters in Antonioni films

The actress Monica Vitti, who became famous as the star of several films directed by Michelangelo Antonioni during the early 1960s, was born on this day in 1931 in Rome.

Antonioni, with whom she had a romantic relationship that lasted a decade, cast her as his female lead in L'avventura (1960), La notte (1961), and L'eclisse (1962), three enigmatically moody films once described as a "trilogy on modernity and its discontents".

She also starred for him in his first colour film, Il deserto rosso (1964), which continued in a similar vein.  Her performance earned her a second of four Golden Grail awards. Vitti was also honoured with five David di Donatello awards as Best Actress from the Italian Film Academy.

After splitting with Antonioni, Vitti excelled in comedy, working with directors such as Mario Monicelli, Dino Risi, Alberto Sordi and Ettore Scola.

Her performances in movies such as Monicelli’s The Girl With the Pistol (1968) and I Know That You Know That I Know (1982) saw her spoken of as one of the great actors of the Commedia all’Italiana genre alongside Sordi himself, Ugo Tognazzi, Vittorio Gassman and Nino Manfredi.

Monica Vitti made her screen debut in
1954 after honing her skills in the theatre

Although born in Rome - her real name was Maria Luisa Ceciarelli - Vitti spent eight of her childhood years in Messina in Sicily and returned to Rome after her brothers had left to seek their fortune in America.

She acted in amateur productions as a teenager before securing a place at the National Academy of Dramatic Arts in Rome, where she graduated in 1953. She toured Germany with an Italian acting troupe and made her first stage appearance in Rome in a production of Niccolò Machiavelli's La Mandragola.

Her first small film role came 1954 but her performance of note was in Mario Amendola's Le dritte (1958). By then, she had joined Michelangelo Antonioni's company at the Teatro Nuovo di Milano, which is where her association with the director began.

Vitti’s acting brilliance came to the fore in Antonioni’s films, in which her characters were inevitably complex, tormented, mysterious sometimes neurotic young women, who she was able to portray with incredible empathy.

Yet, after Monicelli suggested to her that she could turn her talent to comedy, she quickly proved her versatility with a string of successes.

Monica Vitti now lives in Rome with her
husband, director Roberto Russo

A woman of natural beauty, Vitti was much-photographed and her private life subject to close scrutiny.  Politically left-wing, she was part of the guard of honour at the funeral of the Communist leader Enrico Berlinguer in 1984.

Her last movie was Secret Scandal (1990), which she also wrote and directed, and for a few years thereafter she worked in television. At the Venice Film Festival in 1995 she received the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement.

In 2000, Vitti took part in the celebrations for the 80th birthday of Alberto Sordi and was a guest, along with many personalities from the entertainment world, at the Jubilee celebrations at the Basilica of San Pietro in the Vatican in December of the same year.

However, after 2002 she was not seen again in public and rumours began to circulate about her health. After some time her husband, the former director Roberto Russo, confirmed that she was alive and living in Rome but was suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease.

The cathedral at Messina had to be rebuilt twice in the 20th
century because of earthquake and war damage

Travel tip:

Messina is a city in the northeast of Sicily, separated from mainland Italy by the Strait of Messina. It is the third largest city on the island and is home to a large Greek-speaking community. The 12th century cathedral in Messina has a bell tower which houses one of the largest astronomical clocks in the world, built in 1933.  Originally built by the Normans, the cathedral, which still contains the remains of King Conrad, ruler of Germany and Sicily in the 13th century, had to be almost entirely rebuilt following a catastrophic earthquake in 1908, and again in 1943, after a fire triggered by Allied bombings.

The auditorium of the Teatro Nuovo di Milano, where
Monica Vitti appeared in the 1950s

Travel tip:

The Teatro Nuovo theatre in Milan, located on the Piazza San Babila in the lower level of the Palazzo del Toro, was designed by architect Emilio Lancia and was the project of the impresario Remigio Paone. It was inaugurated on in December 1938 with a performance of Eduardo De Filippo's comedy Ditegli sempre di sì. Piazza San Babila is characterized by the presence of a fountain built in 1997 by the architect Luigi Caccia Dominioni in conjunction with the Ente Fiera Milano.

More reading:

Michelangelo Antonioni - the 'last great' of post-War Italian cinema

Why Mario Monicelli is called the 'father of Commedia all'Italiana'

The comic genius of Alberto Sordi

Also on this day:

1560: The birth of painter Annibale Carracci

1801: The birth of opera composer Vincenzo Bellini

1918: Armistice ends First World War in Italy


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Gaspare Nadi - builder and diarist

Craftsmen kept chronicle for 50 years

The bell tower of the Palazzo d'Accursio in
Bologna was one of Nadi's projects

Gaspare Nadi, a builder who became famous for the insight into life in 15th century Italy provided by a diary he maintained for half a century, was born on this day in 1418 in Bologna.

Nadi worked on several important buildings in Bologna, including the bell tower of the Palazzo d’Accursio and several churches. He built the library of the Basilica of San Domenico.

He attained the position of Master Mason in the local guild of bricklayers, whom he also served for many terms as guild manager and other official positions.

Yet it was the diary he began to compile in 1452 that became his legacy. Written in idiomatic Bolognese, it proved to be an extraordinary document, a source for historians seeking to understand how families and society functioned in the Italy of Nadi’s lifetime.

As well as detailing family issues, the diary explained much about the construction industry of the time, with entries about clients and remuneration, injuries suffered by workers, the times demanded to turn around projects and the workings of the guilds, even down to the taverns in which members met and the vineyards that supplied their wine.

Nadi's extraordinary diaries are still
available to read today

There were also references to broader topics such as the duties of the city corporations in relation to the maintenance of public order and the pursuing of thieves. Nadi described deliberations on how a defence force would be enlisted for circumstances in which the city was in danger from its enemies.

Nadi was born in a house on the Via dei Pelacani (now Via Giuseppe Petroni) in the parish of San Vitale in Bologna. His father, Filippo di Domenico, a tanner, died in 1427, after which his mother, Chiara, married Giacomo Senzabarba, a shoemaker.

He moved to Faenza at the age of 15, with the intention of pursuing a career in the law. Two years later he returned to Bologna but his step-father refused to maintain him there and he was forced to move out. Fortunately, he was given by friends help first to learn to read and write and then to find work.

He was apprenticed as a barber in 1436. However, the cost of training was prohibitive and he turned instead to learning how to build walls under the guidance of the master builder Bartolomeo Negri.  In May of that year, he helped the engineer Aristotele Fioravanti complete the bell tower of the Palazzo d’Accursio - also known as the Palazzo del Comune - in the centre of Bologna.

In 1444, after completing his professional training in Ferrara, he married Catelina di Antonio di Bernardo, the daughter of a Florentine tailor, and the following year he moved to live with his in-laws in Prato, where he continued to practice his profession.

Catelina bore him six children and six other failed pregnancies in the space of 13 years, which is thought to have contributed to her death in 1462, after which Nadi married twice more, losing his second wife, Francesca, and his eldest son, Girolamo, in an outbreak of plague.  His third marriage, to Caterina, was unhappy and Nadi moved out to live with another son, Giovanni.

He died in 1504 at the age of 85 and is buried in the parish church of San Vitale.

Bologna's Piazza Maggiore at dusk, looking towards
the Palazzo d'Accursio - or Palazzo del Comune

Travel tip:

The Palazzo del Comune in Bologna’s Piazza Maggiore began life in the 13th century as Palazzo d'Accursio, the residence of the jurist Accursius. Over time, it was expanded and attached to adjacent buildings to house civic offices. In 1336 it became the seat of the Anziani - Elders - the highest magistrates of the city, and then the city's seat of government. In the 15th century it was refurbished under the designs of the architect Fioravante Fioravanti, who added the clock tower - Torre d'Accursio - in which Nadi installed the bell.

The Due Torri - the Asinelli and Garisenda
towers - a feature of the Bologna skyline

Travel tip:

Via Giuseppe Petroni, where Nadi was born (known then as Via dei Pelacani) is in central Bologna, linking Piazza Giuseppe Verdi - home of the Teatro Comunale di Bologna, the city’s principal opera venue - with Piazza Aldrovandi, named after the geologist Ulisse Aldrovandi (1522- 1605). Piazza Aldrovandi has a permanent food market, with stands selling fruit and vegetable as well as cheese, fish and other produce on a daily basis. The Piazza Aldrovandi is only 550m along Strada Maggiore from the Due Torri - the Torre degli Asinelli, which is the tallest leaning medieval tower in the world, and its sister, the Garisenda tower - which represent one of the symbols of the city.

Also on this day:

1475: The death of Bergamo condottiero Bartolomeo Colleoni

1893: The birth of car designer Battista Pinin Farina

1906: The birth of film director Luchino Visconti



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Giulio Romano – artist and architect

Painter from Rome left his mark on Mantua

Titian's portrait of Giulio Romano, painted
between 1536 and 1540

Giulio Romano, who was the principal heir to the artist Raphael and one of the most important initiators of the Mannerist style of painting, died on this day in 1546 in Mantua.

He is most remembered for his masterpiece, the Palazzo del Te, built on the outskirts of Mantua as a pleasure palace for the Gonzaga family, which was designed, constructed and decorated entirely by him and his pupils.

The artist had been born in Rome some time in the 1490s and was given the name, Giulio di Pietro di Filippo de’ Gianuzzi. He was known originally as Giulio Pippi, but later was referred to as Giulio Romano because of where he was born.

Giulio was apprenticed to Raphael when still a child and worked on the frescos in the Vatican loggias to designs by Raphael. He also collaborated with him on the decoration of the ceiling in the Villa Farnesina.

He became so important in the workshop that on Raphael’s death in 1520 he was named as one of the master’s chief heirs and he also became his principal artistic executor, completing a number of Raphael’s works, including the Transfiguration.

Romano's 1523 painting The Stoning of St Stephen

His own works from this time, such as the Madonna and Saints and the Stoning of St Stephen, both completed in 1523, show he had developed a highly personal, anticlassical style of painting.

The following year, at the invitation of the Gonzaga family, Giulio left Rome for Mantua, where he remained until his death, completely dominating the artistic affairs of the duchy.

In Mantua he worked on the rebuilding of the ducal palace and his decorations in the Sala de Troia are thought to foreshadow the Baroque style.

He also sculpted the figure of Christ that is positioned above Castiglione’s tomb in the Church of Santa Maria delle Grazie just outside Mantua.

Romano's Palazzo del Tel is 

Giulio’s studio became a popular school of art in Mantua and many of his pupils later achieved fame as artists themselves.

Drawings by Giulio that are still in existence are treasured by collectors and contemporary prints of them, engraved by Marcantonio Raimondi, made a significant contribution to the spread of Italian style throughout Europe.

The architect built a house for himself in Mantua, which was a Mannerist version of Raphael’s house in Rome. He started rebuilding the city’s cathedral the year before his death, in 1546.

Giulio Romano was buried in the Church of San Barnaba in Piazza Giuseppe Bazzani in Mantua.

The Palazzo Ducale in Mantua was the seat
of the ruling Gonzaga family

Travel tip:

Mantua is an atmospheric, old city in Lombardy, to the southeast of Milan, famous for its Renaissance Palazzo Ducale, the seat of the Gonzaga family between 1328 and 1707. Giulio Romano was well paid by the Gonzaga family and could afford to build his own residence in Via Carlo Poma. He reconstructed it from existing buildings, creating an elegant stone façade with arched windows on the upper floor. It still stands as an example of his genius and has some of his original frescos inside. 

The Palazzo del Te was designed as a pleasure palace
considered to be Giulio Romano's masterpiece

Travel tip:

Palazzo del Te, designed for Federico Gonzaga as a summer residence, is a fine example of the Mannerist school of architecture and is considered to be Giulio Romano’s masterpiece. The name for the palace came about because the location chosen had been the site of the Gonzaga family stables at Isola del Te on the edge of the marshes just outside Mantua’s city walls. After the building was completed in about 1535, a team of plasterers, carvers and painters worked on the interior for ten years until all the rooms were decorated with beautiful frescoes.

More reading:

The outstanding legacy of Mannerist painter Parmigiano

Why Bronzino is regarded as the master of the Mannerist movement

Salomone Rossi and the enlightenment of the Mantua court

Also on this day:

1512: Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling revealed

1596: The birth of painter and architect Pietro da Cortona

1757: The birth of sculptor Antonio Canova



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Galileo Ferraris - electrical engineer

Pioneer of alternating current (AC) systems

The engineer Galileo Ferraris saw himself
as a scientist rather than an entrepreneur

The physicist and electrical engineer Galileo Ferraris, who was one of the pioneers of the alternating current (AC) system for transmitting electricity and invented the first alternators and induction motors, was born on this day in 1847 in Piedmont.

The AC system was a vital element in the development of electricity as a readily-available source of power in that it made it possible to transport electricity economically and efficiently over long distances.

Ferraris did not benefit financially from his invention, which is still the basis of induction motors in use today. Another scientist, the Serbian-born Nikola Tesla, patented the device after moving to the United States to work for the Edison Corporation.

Tesla had been working simultaneously on creating an induction motor but there is evidence that Ferraris probably developed his first and as such is regarded by many as the unsung hero in his field.

He saw himself as a scientist rather than an entrepreneur and, although there is no suggestion that his ideas were stolen, openly invited visitors to come in and see his lab.  Unlike Tesla, he never intended to start a company to manufacture the motor and even had doubts whether it would work.

One of Ferraris's early motors, currently
in a museum in Sardinia

Born in Livorno Vercellese, a small town in the Vercelli province of Piedmont now known as Livorno Ferraris, Galileo Ferraris was the son of a pharmacist and the nephew of a physician in Turin, to whom he was sent at the age of 10 to obtain an education in the classics and the sciences.

Ferraris was was a graduate of the University of Turin and the Scuola d’Applicazione of Turin, emerging with a master's degree in engineering. He remained in the academic world and independently researched the rotary magnetic field.

He experimented with different types of motors and his research and his studies resulted in the development of an alternator, which converted mechanical (rotating) power into electric power as alternating current.

While Tesla sought to patent his device, Ferraris published his research in a paper to the Royal Academy of Sciences in Turin and the alternator as a source of polyphase power became key in the history of electrification, along with the power transformer.

These inventions enabled power to be transmitted by wires economically over considerable distances and electricity to be generated by harnessing the natural power of water, thus enabling power to be available in remote places.

The city of Turin marked the contributions made to science by Ferraris, who also researched in the field of optical instruments, with the creation of a permanent monument at the Royal Italian Industrial Museum of Turin (now the Royal Turin Polytechnic).  From 1934 to 2006, the "Galileo Ferraris" Electrotechnical Institute could be found in Corso Massimo d'Azeglio.

The Palazzo Chiablese di Castell'Apertole, the former
Savoy hunting lodge near Livorno Ferraris

Travel tip:

Known at different times as Livorno Piemonte as well as Livorno Vercellese, Livorno Ferraris occupies a wide area of countryside in the province of Vercelli in the plain of the Po river, bisected by the Depretis, Cavour and Ivrea canals. Located about 40km (25 miles) northeast of Turin and about 25km (16 miles) west of the city of Vercelli, it  hosted the conclave for the election of the antipope Benedict XIII in 1384. Nearby is the 18th century Palazzo Chiablese di Castell'Apertole, a former hunting lodge of the Savoy royal family.

The modern Politecnico di Torino of today

Travel tip:

The Royal Turin Polytechnic can be found in Corso Duca degli Abruzzi in the centre of Turin, about 2.5km (1.5 miles) from the Royal Palace. It evolved from the Royal Italian Industrial Museum, which was established in 1862 by Royal Decree as an Italian equivalent of the South Kensington Museum of London and of the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers of Paris, to promote industrial education and the progress of industry and trade. Parallel with Corso Duca degli Abruzzi is the Corso Galileo Ferraris, a long, straight road that links the Giardino Andrea Guglielminetti with the Stadio Olimpico Grande Torino, the home of Torino football club, a distance of 4.1km (2.5 miles).

More reading:

How Alessandro Volta invented the electric battery

Antonio Meucci - the 'true' inventor of the telephone

The physicist who tried to bring corpses back to life

Also on this day:

1929: The birth of swimmer-turned-actor Bud Spencer

1984: The death of Neapolitan dramatist Eduardo De Filippo


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