14 April

Gianni Rodari - children’s author

Writer whose books reflect the struggles of the lower classes in society

Writer and journalist Gianni Rodari, who became famous for creating Cipollino, a children’s book character, died on this day in 1980 in Rome. Regarded as the best modern writer for children in Italian, Rodari had been awarded the Hans Christian Andersen Medal for children’s literature in 1970, which gained him an international reputation. Cipollino, which means Little Onion, fought the unjust treatment of his fellow vegetable characters by the fruit royalty, such as Prince Lemon and the overly proud Tomato, in the garden kingdom. The main themes of the stories are the struggle of the underclass against the powerful, good versus evil and the importance of friendship in the face of difficulties. Read more…

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Lamberto Dalla Costa - Olympic bobsleigh champion

Fighter pilot who became first Italian to win a Gold medal

Lamberto Dalla Costa, part of the team that brought Italy its first gold medal for Olympic bobsleigh, was born on this day in 1920 in Crespano del Grappa, a small town in the Veneto. Dalla Costa was an adventurous individual with a passion for flying. He joined the Italian Air Force as a volunteer during World War Two and became a combat pilot who rose eventually to the rank of air marshall.  When Italy was chosen to host the 1956 Winter Olympics at Cortina d'Ampezzo they was a tradition of looking towards the military to provide the crews for the bobsleigh events and Dalla Costa was selected, even though he had never been involved with high-level competitive sport, after demonstrating the right level of skill and discipline. Read more...

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Girolamo Riario - papal military leader

Assassinated after failed attempt to unseat Medici family

Girolamo Riario, the 15th century governor of Imola and Forlì who was part of a major plot to displace the powerful Medici family as rulers of Florence, was assassinated on this day in 1488. Riario, a nephew of Pope Sixtus IV who had appointed him Captain General of the Church, was unpopular with his subjects as a result of imposing high taxes, but his murder was thought to be an attempt by the noble Orsi family of Forlì to seize control of the city. Two members of the family, Checco and Ludovico, led a group of assassins armed with swords into government palace, where Riario was set upon.  Despite the presence of guards, Riario was stabbed and slashed repeatedly.  Eventually, his dead body was left in a local piazza, surrounded by a crowd celebrating his demise, as the Orsi brothers and their gang looted the palace. Read more...

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Gasparo da Salò – violin maker

Founder of the Brescian school of stringed instrument craftsmen

One of Italy’s earliest violin makers, Gasparo da Salò, died on this day in 1609 in Brescia. He developed the art of string making to a high level and his surviving instruments are still admired and revered. Da Salò was born Gasparo Bertolotti in Salò, a resort on Lake Garda in 1542. His father and uncle were violinists and composers and his cousin, Bernardino, was a violinist at the Este court in Ferrara and at the Gonzaga court in Mantua. Bertolotti received a good musical education and was referred to as ‘a talented violone player’ in a 1604 document about the music at the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Bergamo. Bertolotti moved to Brescia on the death of his father and set up shop in an area where there were other instrument makers. He became known as Gasparo da Salò and his workshop quickly became one of the most important in Europe. Read more...

Gianni Rodari - children’s author

Writer whose books reflect the struggles of the lower classes in society

Gianni Rodari originally trained to
be a schoolteacher 

Writer and journalist Gianni Rodari, who became famous for creating Cipollino, a children’s book character, died on this day in 1980 in Rome.

Regarded as the best modern writer for children in Italian, Rodari had been awarded the Hans Christian Andersen Medal for children’s literature in 1970, which gained him an international reputation.

Cipollino, which means Little Onion, fought the unjust treatment of his fellow vegetable characters by the fruit royalty, such as Prince Lemon and the overly proud Tomato, in the garden kingdom.

The main themes of the stories are the struggle of the underclass against the powerful, good versus evil and the importance of friendship in the face of difficulties.

Rodari was born in 1920 in Omegna, a small town on Lake Orta in the province of Novara in northern Italy.

His father died when he was ten years old and Rodari and his two brothers were brought up by their mother in her native village of Gavirate near Varese.

Rodari trained to be a teacher and received his diploma when he was 17. He began to teach elementary classes in rural schools around Varese.

Rodari's character Cippolino, with
Prince Lemon and Tomato

During the Second World War his poor health prevented him from serving in the army but he was forced to join the National Fascist Party to get work.

The shock of losing his two best friends and discovering that his favourite brother, Cesare, had been sent to a German concentration camp led Rodari to join the Italian Communist Party and join the resistance movement.

He had become interested in the ideas of Lenin and Trotsky when he was a young man and after the war he worked for the Communist newspaper, L’Unità, as a journalist.

The Communist Party later made him editor of a new, weekly children’s magazine, Il Pionere.

Rodari published his first books, Il Libro delle Filastrocche and Il Romanzo di Cipollino, in 1951.

He married Maria Teresa Feretti in 1953 and four years later they had a daughter, Paola.

He began making regular trips to the Soviet Union and continued to write for children until the 1970s. Rodari became ill after returning from the Soviet Union in 1979 and died the following year after undergoing an operation in Rome.

Omegna is on the shores of Lake Orta in northeast
Piedmont, about 100km (62 miles) from Turin

Travel tip:

Omegna, where Rodari was born, is a town in the province of Verbano-Cusio-Ossola in Piedmont. At 100km (62 miles) northeast of Turin, it is situated at the northernmost point of Lake Orta, which is reputed to be one of Italy’s prettiest small lakes. During the Second World War, Omegna was a centre of partisan resistance against the German-Fascist occupation. For many years the main centre for production of pots and small home appliances in Italy.

Gavirate, 55km (34 miles) north of Milan, is situated
on the shore of Lake Varese

Travel tip:

Rodari and his brothers were brought up in Gavirate, a village near Varese, which is a city in north western Lombardy, situated 55 km (34 miles) north of Milan. Overlooking Lake Varese, the city is home to the Sacro Monte di Varese, the sacred mountain of Varese, a place of pilgrimage and worship and one of the Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy included on the UNESCO World Heritage list.

More reading:

How a painful childhood inspired the verse of Giovanni Pascoli

The first Montessori school opens in Rome

Giulio Einaudi, the publisher who defied the Fascists

Also on this day:

1488: The assassination of papal military leader Girolamo Riario

1609: The death of violin maker Gasparo da Salò

1920: The birth of Olympic bobsleigh champion Lamberto della Costa

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13 April

Roberto Calvi – banker

Mystery remains over bizarre death of bank chairman

Roberto Calvi, dubbed ‘God’s Banker’ by the Press because of his close association with the Vatican, was born on this day in 1920 in Milan. In 1982 his body was found hanging from scaffolding beneath Blackfriars Bridge in London. His death is a mystery that has never been satisfactorily solved and it has been made the subject of many books and films. Calvi was the chairman of the failed Banco Ambrosiano in Milan, which had direct links to Pope John Paul II through his bodyguard, Archbishop Paul Marcinkus, who was head of the Vatican Bank, which had shares in Ambrosiano. Calvi had been missing for nine days before his body was found by a passer-by in London. At first police treated his death as suicide but in October 2002, forensic experts commissioned by an Italian court finally concluded Calvi had been murdered. Read more…

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Antonio Meucci - inventor of the telephone

Engineer from Florence was 'true' father of communications

Antonio Meucci, the Italian engineer who was acknowledged 113 years after his death to be the true inventor of the telephone, was born on this day in 1808 in Florence. Until Vito Fossella, a Congressman from New York, asked the House of Representatives to recognise that the credit should have gone to Meucci, it was the Scottish-born scientist Alexander Graham Bell who was always seen as father of modern communications. Yet Meucci’s invention was demonstrated in public 16 years before Bell took out a patent for his device. This was part of the evidence Fossella submitted to the House, which prompted a resolution in June, 2002, that the wealth and fame that Bell enjoyed were based on a falsehood. Read more…

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Giannino Marzotto - racing driver

Double Mille Miglia winner from a famous family

Giannino Marzotto, a racing driver who twice won the prestigious Mille Miglia and finished fifth at Le Mans, was born on this day in 1928 in Valdagno, a town situated in the mountains about 30km (19 miles) northwest of Vicenza. He was the great, great grandson of Luigi Marzotto, who in 1836 opened a woollen factory that evolved into the Marzotto Group, one of Italy’s largest textile manufacturers. With this wealthy background, Giannino was able to indulge his passion for cars.  With the support of Enzo Ferrari, Giannino and three of his brothers - Vittorio, Umberto and Paolo - entered the 1950 Mille Miglia, the historic endurance test over 1,000 Roman miles (about 1,500km) from Brescia to Rome and back, and scored an improbable victory.  Marzotto scored a hit with the Italian public not just for his skill behind the wheel but for his insistence on competing in a double-breasted brown suit.  Read more...

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12 April

Giorgio Cantarini - actor

Child star of Oscar-winning Life Is Beautiful

Giorgio Cantarini, who delivered an award-winning performance in the triple Oscar-winning movie Life Is Beautiful when he was just five years old, was born on this day in 1992 in Orvieto. Cantarini was cast as Giosuè, the four-year-old son of Roberto Benigni’s character, Guido, in the 1997 film, which brought Academy Awards for Benigni as Best Actor and, as the director, for Best Foreign Film. For his own part, Cantarini was rewarded for a captivating performance in the poignant story with a Young Artist award. Three years later, in Ridley Scott’s Oscar-winning blockbuster Gladiator, Cantarini was given another coveted part as the son of Russell Crowe’s character, Maximus. Cantarini went to an audition for the part of Giosuè after an uncle read a description in a newspaper article of the kind of child Benigni wanted and told him he was a perfect match. Read more…

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Marcello Lippi - World Cup winning coach

Former Juventus manager also won the Champions League

Marcello Lippi, one of Italy's most successful football managers and a World Cup winner in 2006, was born on this day in 1948 in Viareggio on the Tuscan coast, where he still lives. Lippi, who as Juventus coach won five Serie A titles and the Champions League before taking the reins of the national team, subsequently had a successful career in China, where his Guangzhou Evergrande team won three Chinese Super League championships and the Asian Champions League. He is the only manager to have won both the European Champions League and the Asian Champions League. After winning his third league title with Guangzhou in November 2015 he announced his retirement, claiming he was too old to continue coaching.  He stayed at the club as director of football but resigned from that position the following February. Read more...

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Flavio Briatore - entrepreneur

From clothing to luxury resorts via Formula One

The colourful and controversial entrepreneur Flavio Briatore was born on this day in 1950 in Verzuolo, a large village in the Italian Alps near Saluzzo in Piedmont. Briatore is best known for his association with the Benetton clothing brand and, through their sponsorship, Formula One motor racing, but his business interests have extended well beyond the High Street and the race track. His empire includes his exclusive Sardinian beach club Billionaire, Twiga beach clubs in Tuscany and Apulia, the Lion under the Sun spa resort in Kenya, the upmarket Sumosan, Twiga and Cipriani restaurants, and the Billionaire Couture menswear line. Briatore was also for three years co-owner with former F1 chief executive Bernie Ecclestone and steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal of the English football club Queen’s Park Rangers. Read more…

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Caffarelli – opera singer

Tempestuous life of a talented male soprano

The castrato singer who performed under the stage name of Caffarelli was born Gaetano Maiorano on this day in 1710 in Bitonto in the province of Bari in Apulia. Caffarelli had a reputation for being temperamental and for fighting duels with little provocation, but he was popular with audiences and was able to amass a large fortune for himself. It is thought that his stage name, Caffarelli, may have been taken from his teacher, Caffaro, who gave him music lessons when he was a child. When Maiorano was ten years old he was given the income from two vineyards owned by his grandmother to enable him to study music. The legal document drawn up mentioned that the young boy wished to be castrated and become a eunuch. Maiorano became a pupil of Nicola Porpora, the composer and singing teacher, who is reputed to have told him eventually there was no more he could be taught because he was the greatest singer in Europe. Read more…

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