Roberta Vinci - tennis champion

Won five Grand Slam doubles titles with partner Sara Errani

Roberta Vinci won 10 singles and 25 doubles titles in her
career, reaching a Grand Slam singles final at the age of 32

The tennis player Roberta Vinci, one half of the most successful Italian women’s doubles partnerships of all time and one of only four Italian women to rank in the world’s top 10 at singles, was born on this day in 1983 in the major port city of Taranto in Puglia.

Vinci and partner Sara Errani reached the women’s doubles final at eight Grand Slam tournaments between 2012 and 2014, winning five of them.

They were the champions at the French Open and United States Open in 2012 and the Australian Open in 2013 and again in 2014. When they won the Wimbledon title in 2014 they became one of only five women’s doubles partnerships to complete a career Grand Slam of all the four majors.

The pair, who reached No 1 in the world rankings in 2012, unexpectedly ended their five-year partnership in 2015, after which Vinci focussed on singles.

Vinci and her doubles partner Sara Errani,
with whom she won five Grand Slams

Vinci’s finest achievement in singles came at the US Open in 2015, when she defeated world No 1 Serena Williams in the semi-finals before facing her compatriot and childhood friend Flavia Pennetta in the final, the first in a Grand Slam in the open era to pit one Italian against another.

Pennetta won 7-6, 6-2 but Vinci was spurred on by her achievement in reaching a Grand Slam final for the first time at 32 years old and in 2016 broke into the world’s top 10 for the first time in her career at 33 years and four days. It is the oldest at which any player has attained a top-10 ranking for the first time.

She did so on the back of winning a WTA tournament in St Petersburg, Russia, her first for three years. Errani, Pennetta and Francesca Schiavone are the other Italian women who have achieved a ranking in the top 10.

The daughter of an accountant, Vinci took up tennis at the age of just six and represented Taranto Tennis Club in numerous junior events. She and Pennetta, from Brindisi, won the women’s doubles at the Avvenire Trophy at just 14 years old.

They won the girls’ doubles at the French Open in 1999, the same year that Vinci made her professional debut.

Vinci and Flavia Pennetta show off their trophies after the
US Open women's final of 2015 in New York

The first of her 35 titles came in 2001 at the Qatar Open, when she and the French player Sandrine Testud won the women’s doubles. In all she went on to win 25 doubles titles, all but three in partnership with Errani.

Vinci won the first of her 10 singles titles at the Copa Colsanitas in Bogota, Colombia, in 2007. She was also a member of the Italian team that won the Fed Cup women’s team event on four occasions.

Unusually for a modern player, Vinci used a one-handed backhand grip and the backhand slice was one of her favourite shots. Combined with a powerful forehand and excellent court coverage, her game was often likened to that of the great German champion Steffi Graf.

After a 21-year career, Vinci retired from professional tennis at the Italian Open in 2018, bowing out before an appreciative home crowd at the Foro Italico in Rome, signing off a tearful farewell speech with the words: “From tomorrow, I am on holiday!”

Taranto's Castello Aragonese, which stands guard over
the canal linking the Mar Grande with the Mar Piccolo

Travel tip:

Taranto, a port city on the Ionian Sea which is home to Italy’s largest naval base, was once one of the largest cities in the world, founded by the Greeks in 706BC and growing so prosperous that it once had a population in excess of 300,000. It retained its status under the Roman Republic but declined under the Roman Empire after the Emperor Trajan redirected the Via Appia, which used to connect it with Rome, to Bari. Nowadays, it is still a substantial city, home to almost 200,000 people. It is built around two large bays - the Mar Grande, where the commercial port is located, and the Mar Piccolo, flanked by the historic town centre and also home to the city’s fishing fleets.  The city is notable for multiple architectural styles, including Byzantine, Saracen and Norman. The Cattedrale di San Cataldo, right in the heart of old Taranto, dates back to the 11th century and houses the relics of the city’s patron saint, Cataldo. Taranto’s other must-see monument is the Castello Aragonese, built by King Ferdinand of Aragon in the 15th century.

The uniquely ornate setting of Italy's national tennis centre
at the Foro Italico, home of the Italian Open

Travel tip:

Foro Italico, the sports complex in Rome that is the home of the Italian Open tennis championships, was built between 1928 and 1938 as the Foro Mussolini. Inspired by the Roman forums of the imperial age, its original purpose was to host the Olympic Games of 1940 as a showcase for Fascist values. In the event, the Second World War meant the 1940 Games were cancelled, although it was the main host venue for the Rome Olympics of 1960. The complex of today includes the Stadio Olimpico, home of Rome’s two major football clubs - Roma and Lazio - and the largest sports stadium in Italy, the ornate Stadio dei Marmi athletics stadium - headquarters of the Italian National Olympic Committee - and the national tennis centre, which - like the Stadio dei Marmi is surrounded by classical statues of athletes.


More reading:

Why Sara Errani can be called Italy's most successful tennis player of all time

Francesca Schiavone - the first Italian woman to win a Grand Slam

How Camila Giorgi became Italy's No 1

Also on this day:

1455: The death of Renaissance painter Fra Angelico

1564: The death of Michelangelo

1967: The birth of soccer star Roberto Baggio

(Picture credits: Main picture of Roberta Vinci by Regasterios; Vinci and Errani by Marianne Bevis; Castello Aragonese by Livioandronico2013; all via Wikimedia Commons)


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17 February

Giovanni Pacini – opera composer

Works of overshadowed musician have enjoyed recent revival

Composer Giovanni Pacini, who wrote operas in the early part of the 19th century to suit the voices of the great singers of the period, was born on this day in 1796 in Catania in Sicily.  By the mid 1830s, Pacini had withdrawn from operatic activity after he found his operas eclipsed by those of Gaetano Donizetti and Vincenzo Bellini. After he returned with his opera, Saffo, in 1840, which generally hailed as his masterpiece, he found himself overshadowed by Giuseppe Verdi. Read more...

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Raffaele ‘Raf’ Vallone – actor

Movie star who had four careers

Raffaele Vallone, the stage and screen actor who was born on this day in 1916, was remarkable for having embarked on three different career paths before he made his acting debut. A former apprentice professional footballer, he quit to join his father’s legal practice before changing course again and becoming a journalist. Then, after interviewing the film director Giuseppe De Santis, he was offered a part in a neo-realist movie that became a box-office hit and found his true vocation. Read more...

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Giordano Bruno - 'martyr of science'

Dominican friar condemned as a heretic

Giordano Bruno, a Dominican friar and philosopher who challenged orthodox Christian beliefs in the 16th century, died on this day in 1600 when he was burned at the stake as a heretic. Among the beliefs that contradicted Catholic wisdom was his contention that God did not exist in some personal form with human traits, that everything in the universe was made of tiny particles (atoms), that Earth revolved around the sun, rather than the other way round and that our sun was only one of an infinite number of suns in an endless universe, each surrounded by planets. Read more…

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Arcangelo Corelli – musician

Baroque composer had a major influence on the development of music

Violinist and composer Arcangelo Corelli was born on this day in 1653 at Fusignano, a small town near Ravenna.  He is remembered for his influence on the development of violin style and for his use of the genres of sonata and concerto. Both Bach and Handel are said to have studied his work and been influenced by him. Correlli’s 12 Concerti Grossi established the concerto grosso as a popular medium of composition. Corelli was also a brilliant teacher and among his many students was the young Antonio Vivaldi. Read more…

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Giovanni Pacini – opera composer

Works of overshadowed musician have enjoyed recent revival

Giovanni Pacini found himself overshadowed
first by Bellini and Donizetti, then Verdi

Composer Giovanni Pacini, who wrote operas in the early part of the 19th century to suit the voices of the great singers of the period, was born on this day in 1796 in Catania in Sicily.

Pacini began his formal music studies at the age of 12, when he was sent by his father, the opera singer Luigi Pacini, to study voice in Bologna with castrato singer and composer, Luigi Marchesi.

He soon switched his focus to composing and wrote an opera, La sposa fedele - The Faithful Bride. It was premiered in Venice in 1818 and, for its revival the following year, Pacini provided a new aria, to be sung specifically by the soprano Giuditta Pasta.

By the mid 1820s he had become a leading opera composer, having produced many successful serious and comic works.

Pacini’s 1824 work Alessandro nelle Indie - Alexander in the Indies - was a successful serious opera based on Andrea Leone Tottola’s updating of a text by librettist Pietro Metastasio.

But by the mid 1830s, Pacini had withdrawn from operatic activity after he found his operas eclipsed by those of Gaetano Donizetti and Vincenzo Bellini.

The title page of Pacini's opera,
Saffo, regarded as his best

He settled in Tuscany, where his father had been born, and he founded and directed a music school and theatre in Viareggio.

He also took on the post of maestro di cappella at the Palazzo Ducale in Lucca, where he began to compose liturgical music and he started to write articles on music and music criticism.

Pacini returned to composing with his opera, Saffo, in 1840, which differed stylistically from his earlier work and is generally hailed as his masterpiece. It was performed extensively in Italy, Europe and other parts of the world.

But he then found himself overshadowed by another opera composer, this time Giuseppe Verdi, who often addressed contemporary political issues in his work. Pacini instead began writing instrumental music.

He was the only significant composer of his time to write an autobiography, Le mie memorie artistiche - My Artistic Memoirs. Published in 1865, it has been read avidly by scholars as it gives a fascinating insight into Pacini’s career and life, during which he produced more than 70 operas.

Pacini died in 1867 in Pescia in Tuscany.

Since the 1980s there have been revivals and recordings of his works. His 1825 opera, L’ultimo giorno di Pompei - The Last Day of Pompei - was performed at the Festival delle Valle d’Itria in Martina Franca in 1996 and was then transferred to the Teatro Massimo Bellini in Catania. A live recording of the Martina Franca performance was released in 1997 and re-released in 2012.

The Grand Hotel Royal in Viareggio is an example of
the town's Liberty-style architecture

Travel tip:

Viareggio, where Pacini opened a music school and theatre, is a popular seaside resort in Tuscany with excellent sandy beaches and some beautiful examples of Liberty-style architecture, such as the Grand Hotel Royal. There is a monument to the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley in Piazza Paolina because his body was washed up on the beach at Viareggio after he drowned during a storm in the Gulf of La Spezia.

Find a hotel in Viareggio with TripAdvisor

One of the streets in the centre of Pescia, the small
town in Tuscany where Giovanni Pacini died in 1867

Travel tip:

Pescia, where Giovanni Pacini died, is in the northern part of Tuscany, close to the beautiful towns of Lucca, Pistoia and Montecatini Terme. It is known as the ‘city of flowers’ because of its large wholesale flower market. In the church of San Francesco there are 13th century frescoes depicting the life of St Francis of Assisi, which are believed to be an accurate representation of the Saint because the artist, Bonaventura Berlinghieri, actually knew him.


More reading:

Giuditta Pasta - the first soprano to sing Bellini's Norma

The short but successful career of Vincenzo Bellini

La Traviata - the world's favourite opera

Also on this day:

1600: Philosopher Giordano Bruno burned at the stake

1653: The birth of Baroque composer Arcangelo Corelli

1916: The birth of movie actor Raf Vallone

(Saffo first page from the Central National Library of Florence; Grand Hotel Royal by Sailko; Pescia street by Davide Papalini; via Wikimedia Commons)


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16 February

Achille Castiglioni 

Leading figure in post-war Italian style

The designer Achille Castiglioni, whose innovative ideas for lighting, furniture and items for the home put him at the forefront of Italy’s post-war design boom, was born on this day in 1918 in Milan. Many of his designs, including the Arco floor lamp for which he is most famous, are still in production today, even 17 years after his death. The Arco lamp, which he designed in 1962 in conjunction with his brother, Pier Giacomo, combined a heavy base in Carrara marble, a curved telescopic stainless steel arm and a polished aluminium reflector. Read more...

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Edda Dell’Orso – vocalist

Soprano was wordless voice of Morricone soundtracks

The singer Edda Dell’Orso, best known for the extraordinary range of wordless vocals that have featured in many of composer Ennio Morricone’s brilliant film soundtracks from the 1960s onwards, was born on this day in 1935 in Genoa. Her collaboration with Morricone began when he was contracted in 1964 to provide the musical score for the ‘spaghetti western’ A Fistful of Dollars but was offered only a small budget, which meant his access to a full orchestra was limited. Forced to improvise, he used the human voice as an instrument to create sounds. Read more…

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Giambattista Bodoni - type designer

Celebrity printer whose name lives on in type

Typographer, printer and publisher Giambattista Bodoni was born on this day in 1740 in Saluzzo in the region of Piedmont. At the height of his career he became internationally famous and was complimented by the Pope and paid a pension by Napoleon. Bodoni, whose father and grandfather were both printers, designed a modern typeface that was named after him and is still in use today. Read more…

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Valentino Rossi - motorcycle world champion

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

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 89 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.  Read more...

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