12 June

NEW - Edda “Edy” Campagnoli - model, TV star and businesswoman

Glamorous blonde who married top footballer

The model, television star and later businesswoman Edda “Edy” Campagnoli was born on this day in 1934 in Milan.  Campagnoli was a famous face in Italy in the 1950s. She became a celebrity as the glamorous assistant of popular presenter Mike Bongiorno on a prime time quiz show, and then married the AC Milan and Italy goalkeeper Lorenzo Buffon.  For a while, she and Buffon - a cousin of the grandfather of another famous Italian goalkeeper, World Cup-winner Gianluigi Buffon - were one of Italy’s most high-profile couples.  Campagnoli, blonde with blue eyes and a curvaceous figure, first attracted attention as a catwalk model in the city of her birth and it would be her looks that provided a passport to stardom. In 1954, the director Luchino Visconti decided she would be the perfect Venus in his interpretation of Gaspare Spontini’s opera La Vestale, giving her the rare distinction of appearing on stage at Milan's great opera house, Teatro alla Scala, alongside the superstar soprano Maria Callas. A year later, she made her television debut in an afternoon show on the fledgling Rai network, where she was quickly spotted by the producers of Lascia o raddoppia?, a new quiz show.  Read more…

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Charles Emmanuel II - Duke of Savoy

Ruler who was notorious for massacre of Protestant minority

Charles Emmanuel II, who was Duke of Savoy for almost his whole life, died on this day in 1675 in Turin.  His rule was notorious for his persecution of the Valdesi – a Christian Protestant movement widely known as the Waldenses that originate in 12th century France, whose base was on the Franco-Italian border.  In 1655, he launched an attack on the Valdesi that turned into a massacre so brutal that it sent shockwaves around Europe and prompted the English poet, John Milton, to write the sonnet On the Late Massacre in Piedmont.  The British political leader Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of the Commonwealth, proposed to send the British Navy if the massacre and subsequent attacks were not halted, and raised funds for helping the Waldensians.  More positively, Charles Emmanuel II was responsible for improving commerce and creating wealth in the Duchy. He was a driver in developing the port of Nice and building a road through the Alps towards France.  He also reformed the army so that it did not rely on mercenaries, forming five Piedmontese regiments and reviving the cavalry, as well as introducing a standardised uniform.  Read more…

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Nick Gentile - mafioso

Sicilian mobster defied code of silence by publishing memoirs

The mafioso Nicola Gentile, known in the United States as Nick, who became notorious for publishing a book of memoirs that revealed the inner workings of the American Mafia as well as secrets of the Sicilian underworld, was born on this day in 1885 in Siculiana, a small town on the south coast of the Sicily, in the province of Agrigento.  Gentile’s book, Vita di Capomafia, which he wrote in conjunction with a journalist, was published in 1963 and provided much assistance to the American authorities in their fight against organized crime.   As a result Gentile was sentenced to death by the mafia council in Sicily for having broken the code of omertà, a vow of silence to which all mafiosi are expected to adhere to protect their criminal activities.  Siculiana, in fact, was a mafia stronghold, where the code was usually enforced with particular rigour.  Yet the mobsters from the city of Catania who were tasked with carrying out the sentence declined to do so, for reasons that have not been explained. In the event, Gentile died in Siculiana in 1966 of natural causes, having spent his last years as an old, sick man who appeared to have very little money and was kept alive by the kindliness of neighbours.  Read more…

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Margherita Hack – astrophysicist

TV personality made science more popular

Writer and astrophysicist Margherita Hack was born on this day in 1922 in Florence.  She studied stars by analysing the different kinds of radiation they emitted and frequently appeared on television to explain new findings in astronomy and physics.  Hack, whose father, Roberto Hack, was of Swiss origin, graduated in physics from the University of Florence in 1945. She worked at the Brera Astronomical Observatory just outside Milan and then became a professor at the University of Trieste.  She spent more than 20 years as director of the observatory in Trieste, the first woman in Italy to hold such a position. Under her leadership, the observatory became one of the foremost research centres in Italy.  Hack wrote many scientific papers and books, winning awards for her research. Her television appearances helped make science more popular with ordinary people.  Hack was also known for her strong political views and for her criticisms of the Roman Catholic Church, which she believed had an unscientific outlook.  Hack was awarded the honour of Dame Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic in 2012 and the asteroid 8558 Hack, discovered in 1995, was named after her.  Read more…


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Edda “Edy” Campagnoli - model, TV star and businesswoman

Glamorous blonde who married top footballer

Edy Campagnoli, pictured with her
husband, footballer Lorenzo Buffon

The model, television star and later businesswoman Edda “Edy” Campagnoli was born on this day in 1934 in Milan.

Campagnoli was a famous face in Italy in the 1950s. She became a celebrity as the glamorous assistant of popular presenter Mike Bongiorno on a prime time quiz show, and then married the AC Milan and Italy goalkeeper Lorenzo Buffon.

For a while, she and Buffon - a cousin of the grandfather of another famous Italian goalkeeper, World Cup-winner Gianluigi Buffon - were one of Italy’s most high-profile couples.

Campagnoli, blonde with blue eyes and a curvaceous figure, first attracted attention as a catwalk model in the city of her birth and it would be her looks that provided a passport to stardom. In 1954, the director Luchino Visconti decided she would be the perfect Venus in his interpretation of Gaspare Spontini’s opera La vestale, giving her the rare distinction of appearing on stage at Milan's great opera house, Teatro alla Scala, alongside the superstar soprano Maria Callas. She was not required to sing.

A year later, she made her television debut in an afternoon show on the fledgling Rai network, where she was quickly spotted by the producers of Lascia o raddoppia?, a new quiz show based on the American hit The $64,000 Question.

Campagnoli, with host Mike Bongiorno (left) and
guest - the comedian Totò - in Lascia o radoppio?

Lascia o raddoppia? (English translation: Double or Quits?) was the vehicle that propelled Bongiorno to fame, effectively launching a career that would see his face become as recognisable to Italians as the Pope.

Campagnoli’s role was to lead the quiz show’s contestants on to the stage and introduce them to the host before standing to one side. Her presence was essentially decorative, as she was told bluntly by Bongiorno on the first night of transmission, when nervously she asked to run through what she would be doing and was told to “just be a beautiful girl”. The press dubbed her la valletta muta - the mute valet.

Her relationship with Bongiorno was often difficult. He was not a tall man and in high heels she towered above him. In an interview many years after she left the show, Campagnoli said that he ordered her to wear flat shoes and would refuse to be photographed with her if she was in heels.

Nonetheless, the huge success of the show turned Campagnoli into a celebrity, her appearances alongside Bongiorno in publicity events drawing massive crowds.  It also made her wealthy. Although the 25,000-lire fee she was paid for each edition was a fraction of the amount Bongiorno received, it still made her the highest-paid woman in Italian television.

Edy Campagnoli left television to open a
boutique in Milan's famous fashion quarter

Her fame also opened the door to a number of movie parts and frequent lucrative appearances in the popular fotoromanza magazines, which featured fictional romance stories in photo strip format. The press called her “the most famous woman in Italy”.

Her real-life romance with Buffon, who made around 300 appearances for an AC Milan side that dominated Italian football in the ‘50s, was a sensation, lapped up by the popular press, not least because she had previously been involved with Giorgio Ghezzi, the goalkeeper at AC Milan’s city rivals, Inter.

They married in 1958, the wedding eagerly covered by Italy’s popular gossip magazines and which drew a crowd of 2,000 people, waiting for a glimpse of her wedding dress despite pouring rain.  For a while, they were the most photographed couple in Italy and could not venture out without being mobbed. They had a daughter, Patricia, but were divorced after 10 years, even though they remained friends.

When Lascia o raddoppia? reached the end of its run in 1959, Campagnoli appeared in a number of other TV shows but quit showbusiness in the mid-1960s to return to the world of clothes, opening a boutique in Via della Spiga, a short distance from Via Monte Napoleone in the heart of Milan’s celebrated fashion quarter.

She was reunited with Bongiorno briefly in 1971, making a guest appearance in another of his hit shows, but for the most part devoted herself to building a successful business. Designs bearing her name sold all over the world and fashion remained her focus until the early 1990s, when her health began to decline.

Campagnoli died at her home in Corso Venezia in January 1995 at the age of 60, having suffered a stroke. Her funeral took place at the church of San Babila.

Via Monte Napoleone is the most famous street in
Milan's Quadrilatero della Moda

Travel tip:

Milan’s fashion district is known as the Quadrilatero della Moda, sometimes the Quad d’Oro. It can be found a 10-minute walk away from the Duomo in the centre of the city. The area centres on Via Monte Napoleone, a long street is lined with designer fashion boutiques, antiques shops and neoclassical mansions. Most of the major fashion houses - such as Armani, Gucci, Hermès, La Perla, Louis Vuitton, Prada, Ralph Lauren and Versace - Nearby, the Palazzo Morando museum displays period costumes.

Corso Venezia, with the Art Nouveau palace Palazzo
Castiglioni in the centre, third building from the right

Travel tip:

Corso Venezia is one of the Milan’s most exclusive and elegant avenues, itself forming part of the Quadrilatero della moda shopping district, stretching from the church of San Babila to Porta Venezia, one of the city’s historical gates. It is lined with Renaissance, Baroque, Rococo and Neoclassical palaces, parks and gardens, including the Giardini Pubblici Indro Montanelli, which contains both the Neoclassical Villa Reale and the city’s Natural History Museum.

Also on this day:

1675: The death of Charles Emmanuel II, Duke of Savoy

1885: The birth of mafioso Nick Gentile

1922: The birth of astrophysicist and TV personality Margherita Hack


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11 June

Antonio Cifrondi – painter

Artist who has preserved images of everyday life 

Baroque artist Antonio Cifrondi was born on this day in 1655 in Clusone, just north of Bergamo, in Lombardy.  He is known for his religious works and his genre paintings of old men and women and of people at work, in which he depicts their clothing in great detail.  Some of his work is on display in the Accademia Carrara in Bergamo. A self-portrait can be seen in the church of Sant' Alessandro della Croce in Via Pignolo in Bergamo.  Cifrondi was born into a poor family in Clusone, the main town in Val Seriana to the north east of Bergamo.  After training as a painter locally he moved to Bologna, and then to Turin and to Rome, where he stayed for about five years. He also worked briefly at the Palace of Versailles near Paris.  He came back to live in the Bergamo area in the 1680s, after which he painted many of his major works. He lived for the last years of his life in a convent near Brescia, the city where he died in 1730.  Bergamo in Lombardy is a beautiful city with an upper and lower town that are separated by impressive fortifications. The magical upper town has gems of medieval and Renaissance architecture.  Read more…

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Corrado Alvaro - writer and journalist

Novelist from Calabria won Italy's most prestigious literary prize

The award-winning writer and journalist Corrado Alvaro died on this day in 1956 at the age of 61.  Alvaro won the Premio Strega, Italy’s most prestigious literary prize, in 1951 with his novel Quasi una vita – Almost a Life.  The Premio Strega – the Strega Prize – has been awarded to such illustrious names as Alberto Moravia, Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, Elsa Morante, Primo Levi, Umberto Eco and Dacia Maraini since its inception in 1947.  Alvaro made his debut as a novelist in 1926 but for much of his life his literary career ran parallel with his work as a journalist.  He was born in San Luca, a small village in Calabria at the foot of the Aspromonte massif in the southern Apennines. His father Antonio was a primary school teacher who also set up classes for illiterate shepherds.  Corrado was sent away to Jesuit boarding schools in Rome and Umbria before graduating with a degree in literature in 1919 at the University of Milan.  He began his newspaper career writing for Il Resto di Carlino of Bologna and Milan’s Corriere della Sera, both daily newspapers, for whom he combined reporting with literary criticism.  Read more…

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Giovanni Antonio Giay – composer

Opera composer also wrote religious music for the Savoy family

Opera and music composer Giovanni Antonio Giay was born on this day in 1690 in Turin.  A protégée of Charles Emmanuel III of Savoy, Giay sometimes spelt Giai or Giaj, wrote 15 operas, five symphonies and a large quantity of sacred music for the royal chapel of Turin Cathedral.  Giay’s father, Stefano Giuseppe Giay, who was a chemist, died when Giovanni Antonio was just five years old.  At the age of ten, Giovanni Antonio became the first member of his family to study music when he entered the Collegio degli Innocenti at Turin Cathedral to study under Francesco Fasoli.  Giay’s first opera, Il trionfo d’amore ossia La Fillide, was premiered at the original Teatro Carignano during the Carnival of 1715.  At the invitation of Charles Emmanuel III of Savoy, Giay became maestro di cappella at the royal chapel in Turin in 1732, succeeding Andrea Stefano Fiore.  Charles Emmanuel III liked art and music and reintroduced feasting and celebrations in Turin that had previously been abolished by his predecessors.  The composer produced a great deal of religious music for the chapel but continued to write opera as well.  Read more…


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10 June

Arrigo Boito – writer and composer

Death of a patriot who fought for Venice

Arrigo Boito, who wrote both the music and libretto for his opera, Mefistofele, died on this day in 1918 in Milan.  Of all the operas based on Goethe’s Faust, Boito’s Mefistofele is considered the most faithful to the play and his libretto is regarded as being of particularly high quality.  Boito was born in Padua in 1842, the son of an Italian painter of miniatures and a Polish countess. He attended the Milan Conservatory and travelled to Paris on a scholarship.  It was there he met Giuseppe Verdi, for whom he wrote the text of the Hymn of the Nations in 1862.  He fought under the direction of Giuseppe Garibaldi in 1866 in the seven weeks of the Third Italian War of Independence, against Austria, after which Venice was ceded to Italy.  While working on Mefistofele, Boito published articles, influenced by the composer Richard Wagner, in which he vigorously attacked Italian music and musicians.  Verdi was deeply offended by his words and by 1868, when Mefistofele was produced in Milan, Boito’s opinions had provoked so much hostility there was nearly a riot.  The opera was withdrawn after two performances, but a revised version, produced in 1875, still survives.  Read more…

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Italy enters the Second World War

Mussolini sides with Germany against Britain and France

One of the darkest periods of Italian history began on this day in 1940 when the country's Fascist dictator, Benito Mussolini, declared war on Great Britain and France, ending the possibility that Italy would avoid being drawn into the Second World War.  Mussolini made the declaration from the balcony of the Palazzo Venezia in Rome, where he had his office. The balcony enabled him to address a large crowd in the Piazza Venezia and he ordered his Blackshirts to ensure that the square was full of enthusiastic supporters.  Italy had already signed a Pact of Steel with Germany but had been reluctant to enter the conflict. Mussolini had a strong navy but a relatively weak army and a lack of resources across the board.  By June 1940, however, Germany was on the point of conquering France and it was thought that Britain would soon follow. Historians believe Mussolini's decision to enter the conflict was an opportunistic attempt to win a share of French territory.  He told the Italian people that going to war was a matter of honour after his efforts to preserve peace had been rebuffed by 'treacherous' Western democracies, but many believe his motives were simply to pursue his expansionist ambitions.  Read more…

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Carlo Ancelotti - football manager

Three-times winner of the Champions League

Carlo Ancelotti, a former top-level player who has become one of football’s most accomplished managers, was born on this day in 1959 in Reggiolo, a small town in Emilia-Romagna.  One of only three managers to have won the UEFA Champions League three times - twice with AC Milan and once with Real Madrid - he is one of only two to have managed teams in four finals.  Ancelotti, who has managed title-winning teams in four countries, is also one of only seven to have won the European Cup or Champions League as a player and gone on to do so as a manager too.  As a boy, Ancelotti often helped his father, Giuseppe, who made and sold cheese for a living, in the fields on the family farm, which is where he claims he acquired his appreciation of hard work.  But despite the cheeses of Emilia-Romagna having international renown, especially the famous Parmigiana-Reggiano, he saw how his father struggled to make enough money to feed his family and vowed to make more of his own life.   His talent for football, allied to that work ethic, enabled him to fulfil that promise.  After playing for his local youth team in Reggiolo, Ancelotti was snapped up as a teenager by Parma, making his debut in Serie C - the third tier in Italian football - in the 1976–77 season, at the age of 18. Read more…


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