29 April

Rafael Sabatini - novelist

Author of swashbucklers had the ‘gift of laughter’

Rafael Sabatini, who wrote successful adventure novels that were later made into plays and films, was born on this day in 1875 in Iesi, a small town in the province of Ancona in Le Marche.  Sabatini was the author of the international best sellers, Scaramouche and Captain Blood, and afterwards became respected as a great writer of swashbucklers with a prolific output.  The son of an English mother, Anna Trafford, and an Italian father, Vincenzo Sabatini, who were both opera singers, Sabatini went to live in England at the age of 17, where he began to write short stories. Some were published in English magazines. His first novel was published in 1902, but it took him about 25 years of hard work before Scaramouche became a big success. Sabatini suffered personal tragedy twice in his life but when he died in Switzerland in 1950 his widow had the first line of Scaramouche inscribed on his headstone: ‘He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad.’ Read more…

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Liberation of Fornovo di Taro

How Brazilian soldiers hastened Nazi capitulation

The town of Fornovo di Taro in Emilia-Romagna acquired a significant place in Italian military history for a second time on this day in 1945 when it was liberated from Nazi occupation by soldiers from the Brazilian Expeditionary Force fighting with the Allies.  Under the command of General João Baptista Mascarenhas de Morais, the Brazilians marched into Fornovo, which is situated about 25km (16 miles) south-west of Parma, at the conclusion of the Battle of Collecchio.  The 148th Infantry Division of the German army under the leadership of General Otto Fretter-Pico offered their surrender, along with soldiers from the 90th Panzergrenadier Division and the 1st Bersaglieri and 4th Mountain Divisions of the Fascist National Republican Army.  In total, 14,779 German and Italian troops laid down their arms after Fretter-Pico concluded that, with the Brazilians surrounding the town, aided by two American tank divisions and one company of Italian partisans, there was no hope of escape.  Read more…

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Sara Errani - tennis champion

Five-times Grand Slam doubles winner reached No 5 in singles

Tennis star Sara Errani, who was born in Bologna on this day in 1987, is arguably the most successful Italian tennis player of all time.  She and partner Roberta Vinci's career record of five Grand Slam doubles titles is unparalleled.  No other Italian combination has won more than one Grand Slam title and no Italian singles player has won more than two.  Nicola Pietrangeli, who was ranked the No 3 men's singles player at his peak, won the French Open championship in 1959 and 1960 and was runner-up in Paris on two other occasions, as well as winning the men's doubles at the French in 1959, with fellow Italian Orlando Sirola.  But Errani and Vinci have won on all surfaces, achieving a career Grand Slam in 2014 when they triumphed in the women's doubles at Wimbledon, having already won the French and US titles in 2012 and the Australian in both 2013 and 2014.    Read more…

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Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini - painter

Venetian artist who made mark in England

The painter Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini, who is regarded as one of the most important Venetian painters of the early 18th century, was born on this day in 1675 in Venice. He played a major part in the spread of the Venetian style of large-scale decorative painting in northern Europe, working in Austria, England, France, Germany, and the Netherlands.  With a style that had influences of Renaissance artist Paolo Veronese and the Baroque painters Pietro da Cortona and Luca Giordano, he is considered an important predecessor of Giovanni Battista Tiepolo in the development of Venetian art.  A pupil of the Milanese painter Paolo Pagani, Pellegrini began travelling while still a teenager, accompanying Pagano to Moravia and Vienna.  After a period studying in Rome, he returned to Venice and married Angela Carriera, the sister of the portraitist Rosalba Carriera. Read more…

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Rafael Sabatini – writer

Rafael Sabatini had been writing for 25
years before enjoying real success

Author of swashbucklers had the ‘gift of laughter’

Rafael Sabatini, who wrote successful adventure novels that were later made into plays and films, was born on this day in 1875 in Iesi, a small town in the province of Ancona in Le Marche.

Sabatini was the author of the international best sellers, Scaramouche and Captain Blood, and afterwards became respected as a great writer of swashbucklers with a prolific output.

He was the son of an English mother, Anna Trafford, and an Italian father, Vincenzo Sabatini, who were both opera singers.

At a young age he was exposed to different languages because he spent time with his grandfather in England and also attended school in both Portugal and Switzerland, while his parents were on tour.

By the time Sabatini went to live in England permanently, at the age of 17, he was already proficient in several languages. Although his first attempts at writing were in French when he was at school in Switzerland, he is said to have consciously chosen to write in English, saying at the time that all the best stories had been written in English.

A 1923 poster for a a silent movie version of Sabatini's
breakthrough novel Scaramouche

Sabatini wrote short stories in the 1890s, some of which were published in English magazines. His first novel was published in 1902, after he began writing romances, saying it was more fun to write them than to read them.

During the First World War he worked for British Intelligence as a translator, while continuing to write.

It took him about 25 years of hard work before his novel, Scaramouche, became a big success in 1921.

The novel was an historical romance set during the French Revolution, featuring a young lawyer who becomes a revolutionary politician and hides out in a commedia dell’arte troupe, where he plays the character of Scaramouche, a roguish buffoon.

Scaramouche became an international best seller and was immediately followed by Captain Blood, which did even better.

The cover of a 1922 edition of another
Sabatini bestseller, Captain Blood

Sabatini’s earlier books were all rushed into reprints, including The Sea Hawk, which was originally written in 1915, but became a success much later. Sabatini continued to maintain a prolific output, producing a novel a year as well as his other writing.

In total, Sabatini produced 34 novels, eight volumes of short stories, six non-fiction books, several plays and numerous, individual short stories.

His books were made into plays and films during the silent era and some were remade in the sound era, although only some of the reels have survived intact.

Sabatini married Ruth Goad Dixon, the daughter of a Liverpool merchant, in 1905. Their only child, Rafael-Angelo, nicknamed Binkie, was killed in a car crash in 1927. In 1931, Sabatini and his wife divorced.

In 1935 he married the sculptor, Christine Wood. They suffered further tragedy when Christine’s son, Lancelot Dixon, was killed in a flying accident on the day he got his wings in the RAF. He flew over Sabatini’s house at Hay-on-Wye to celebrate and, watched by his proud mother and Sabatini, lost control of the plane, crashing it in flames in a nearby field.

Sabatini died in Switzerland in 1950 and was buried in Adelboden, a place where he had loved to go skiing. His wife had the first line of Scaramouche inscribed on his headstone: ‘He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad.’

Iesi has massive 14th century walls that reflect its history
as a former stronghold of the Sforza family

Travel tip:

Rafael Sabatini was born in Iesi, also sometimes spelt Jesi, in the province of Ancona in Le Marche. Iesi was the main stronghold of the Sforza family in Le Marche until it was bought from them in 1447 by the Papal States. It was also part of the territory Cesare Borgia, the son of Pope Alexander VI, carved out of central Italy for himself during his brief career. Sabatini wrote several books about Cesare Borgia and his exploits when he was ruling that part of Italy. Iesi still has the massive 14th century walls that were built following the line of the Roman walls and six of the original towers are still standing today.

The port city of Ancona is the capoluogo of the
Marche region on the Adriatic coast

Travel tip:

Le Marche, known in English as the Marches, is a region of central Italy that forms a narrow strip along the Adriatic coast. It is bordered by Emilia-Romagna and the republic of San Marino to the north, Tuscany to the west, Umbria to the southwest and Abruzzo and Lazio to the south. A railway from Bologna to Brindisi runs through the region along the coast. Ancona is the capoluogo, or main city, of the region.

More reading:

How Emilio Salgari's characters became part of Italian culture

A writer whose stories inspired classic Italian films

Why Alessandro Manzoni is Italy's most famous novelist

Also on this day:

1675: The birth of painter Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini

1945: The liberation of Fornovo di Taro by Brazilian soldiers

1987: The birth of tennis champion Sara Errani


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28 April

Nicola Romeo - car maker

Engineer used profits from military trucks to launch famous marque

Nicola Romeo, the entrepreneur and engineer who founded Alfa Romeo cars, was born on this day in 1876 in Sant’Antimo, a town in Campania just outside Naples.  The company, which became one of the most famous names in the Italian car industry, was launched after Romeo purchased the Milan automobile manufacturer ALFA - Anonima Lombarda Fabbrica Automobili. After making substantial profits from building military trucks in the company’s Portello plant during the First World War, in peacetime Romeo switched his attention to making cars. The first Alfa Romeo came off the production line in 1921. The cars made a major impact in motor racing and, away from the track, the Alfa Romeo name sat on the front rank of the luxury car market. Read more…

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The death of Benito Mussolini

Fascist dictator captured and killed on shores of Lake Como

Benito Mussolini, the dictator who ruled Italy for 21 years until he was deposed in 1943, was killed by Italian partisans on this day in 1945, at the village of Giulino di Mezzegra on the shore of Lake Como.  The 61-year-old leader of the National Fascist Party had been captured the previous day in the town of Dongo, further up the lake, as he attempted to reach Switzerland along with his mistress, Claretta Petacci, and a number of Fascist officials.  The executions were said to have been carried out by a partisan who went under the name of Colonnello Valerio.  From Mezzegra the bodies were taken to Milan where, after being kicked, beaten and spat upon by a mob of angry Milanese citizens, they were hung upside down from the roof of an Esso petrol station. Read more...

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Baldus de Ubaldis – lawyer

Legal opinions have stood the test of time

An expert in medieval Roman law, Baldus de Ubaldis, died on this day in 1400 in Pavia.  De Ubaldis had written more than 3,000 consilia - legal opinions - the most to remain preserved from any medieval lawyer.  His work on the law of evidence and gradations of proof remained the standard treatment of the subject for centuries after his death.  De Ubaldis was born into a noble family in Perugia in 1327. He studied law and received the degree of doctor of civil law when he was 17.  He taught law at the University of Bologna for three years and was then offered a professorship at Perugia University where he remained for 33 years.  One of the best works of De Ubaldis is considered to be his commentary on the Libri Feudorum, a compilation of feudal law provisions.  Read more…

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27 April

Renato Rascel - singer, songwriter and actor

Film and TV star who wrote the iconic song Arrivederci Roma

Renato Rascel, whose remarkable career encompassed more than 60 movies, a hit 1970s TV series, representing Italy at the Eurovision Song Contest and writing one of the most famous Italian songs of all time, was born on this day in 1912 in Turin.   Rascel was Italy’s entry at Eurovision 1960 in London, singing Romantica, with which he had won the Sanremo Music Festival earlier in the year. Romantica finished eighth overall in London.  He is arguably most famous, however, for the song Arrivederci Roma, which he wrote for the 1955 film of the same name, in which he starred with the Italian-American tenor and actor Mario Lanza, which was subsequently released for English and American cinema audiences with the title Seven Hills of Rome.  Later in his long career, Rascel starred in the successful Rai adaptation of the Father Brown stories, by G K Chesterton. Read more…

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Antonio Gramsci - left-wing intellectual

Communist leader Mussolini could not gag

Antonio Gramsci, one of the more remarkable intellectuals of left-wing Italian politics in the early 20th century, died on this day in 1937 in Rome, aged only 46.  A founding member and ultimately leader of the Italian Communist Party (PCI), he was arrested by Benito Mussolini's Fascist regime in November 1926 and sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment.   In failing health, he was granted his release after a campaign by friends and supporters but died without leaving the clinic in which he spent his final two years.  Despite multiple health problems, Gramsci still found sufficient energy while imprisoned  to study the social and political history of Italy in extensive detail and to record his thoughts and theories in notebooks and around 500 letters to friends and supporters.  Many of his propositions heavily influenced the political strategy of communist parties in the West after the Second World War. Read more...

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Popes John XXIII and John Paul II made saints

Crowd of 800,000 in St Peter's Square for joint canonisation

Pope Francis declared Pope John XXIII and Pope John Paul II as saints at a ceremony during Mass in Rome’s St Peter’s Square on this day in 2014.  Hundreds of thousands of people from around the world converged on the Vatican to attend the ceremony, which celebrated two popes recognised as giants of the Catholic Church in the 20th century.  There was scarcely room to move in St Peter's Square, the Via della Conciliazione and the adjoining streets.  The crowd, probably the biggest since John Paul II’s beatification three years earlier, was estimated at around 800,000, of which by far the largest contingent had made the pilgrimage from John Paul’s native Poland to see their most famous compatriot become a saint.  Thousands of red and white Polish flags filled the square.  Read more…

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Vittorio Cecchi Gori - entrepreneur

Ex-president of Fiorentina who produced two of Italy’s greatest films

Vittorio Cecchi Gori, whose chequered career in business saw him produce more than 300 films and own Fiorentina’s football club but also saw him jailed for fraudulent bankruptcy, was born on this day in 1942 in Florence.  The son of Mario Cecchi Gori, whose production company he inherited, he provided the financial muscle behind two of Italy’s greatest films of recent years, Il Postino (1994), which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture, and Roberto Benigni’s Life is Beautiful (1997), which won an Oscar for Best Foreign Language film.  With Cecchi Gori’s backing, Fiorentina enjoyed great times.  With such players as the the Argentine forward Gabriel Batistuta and Claudio Ranieri as coach, they won the Coppa Italia in 1996, their first trophy in 20 years, and went on to play in the Champions League for the first time.  Read more…


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