16 March

Aldo Moro - Italy's tragic former prime minister

Politician kidnapped and murdered by Red Brigades

Italy and the wider world were deeply shocked on this day in 1978 when the former Italian prime minister, Aldo Moro, was kidnapped on the streets of Rome in a violent ambush that claimed the lives of his five bodyguards.  The attack took place on Via Mario Fani, a few minutes from Signor Moro's home in the Monte Mario area, at shortly after 9am during the morning rush hour.  Moro, a 61-year-old Christian Democrat politician who had formed a total of five Italian governments, between 1963 and 1968 and again from 1974-76, was being driven to the Palazzo Montecitorio in central Rome for a session of the Chamber of Deputies.  As the traffic forced Moro's car to pause outside a café, one of four small Fiat saloon cars used by the kidnappers reversed into a space in front of Moro's larger Fiat, in which the front seats were occupied by two carabinieri officers with Moro sitting behind them.  Another of the kidnappers' Fiats pulled in behind the Alfa Romeo immediately following Moro's, which contained three more bodyguards.  At that moment, four gunmen emerged from bushes close to the roadside and began firing automatic weapons.  Read more…

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Bernardo Bertolucci - film director

Caused outrage with Last Tango in Paris

The controversial filmmaker Bernardo Bertolucci was born on this day in 1940 in Parma.  Bertolucci won an Oscar for best director as The Last Emperor picked up an impressive nine Academy Awards in 1988 but tends to be remembered more for the furore that surrounded his 1972 movie Last Tango in Paris.  Last Tango in Paris, starring Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider, caused outrage for its portrayal of sexual violence and emotional turmoil and was banned in Italy.  Although the storm died down over time, it blew up again in 2007 when Schneider, who was only 19 when the film was shot, claimed she felt violated after one particularly graphic scene because she had not been told everything that would happen.  Schneider died from cancer in 2011.  The controversy has overshadowed what has otherwise been an outstanding career, Bertolucci's movies placing him in the company of Federico Fellini, Michelangelo Antonioni, Luchino Visconti and Franco Zeffirelli among the greatest Italian directors of all time.  As a young man, Bertolucci wanted to become a poet, inspired by his father, Attilio, who was a poet as well as an art historian.  Read more…

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Enrico Tamberlik – tenor

Imposing king of the high C sharp

Opera singer Enrico Tamberlik, who is remembered for the quality of his remarkable high notes, was born on this day in 1820 in Rome.  At the height of his career, Tamberlik, whose name is also sometimes spelt Tamberlick, sang regularly at the Royal Opera House in London and in St Petersburg, Paris and America.  The singer is believed to have been of Romanian descent but was born in Italy and did all his vocal training in Naples, Bologna and Milan.  At the age of 17 Tamberlik made his debut in a concert and then made his first appearance on the operatic stage as Gennaro in Lucrezia Borgia by Gaetano Donizetti at the Teatro Apollo in Rome.  In 1841 he appeared under the name Enrico Danieli at the Teatro Fondo in Naples as Tybalt in I Capuleti e I Montecchi by Vincenzo Bellini. A year later he made his debut at Teatro San Carlo in Naples under the name Enrico Tamberlik, which he used from then onwards.  Tamberlik made his London debut as Masaniello in Louis Auber’s La Muette de Portici at Covent Garden in 1850.  In St Petersburg in 1862 in the premiere performance of Giuseppe Verdi’s La forza del destino, he appeared as Don Alvaro, a role that had been written specially for him.  Read more…

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Emilio Lunghi - athlete

Italy's first Olympic medallist 

Emilio Lunghi, a middle-distance runner who was the first to win an Olympic medal in the colours of Italy, was born on this day in 1886 in Genoa.  Competing in the 800 metres at the 1908 Olympic Games in London, Lunghi took the silver medal behind the American Mel Sheppard. In a fast-paced final, Lunghi's time was 1 minute 54.2 seconds, which was 1.8 seconds faster than the previous Olympic record buts still 1.4 seconds behind Sheppard.  It was the same Olympics at which Lunghi's compatriot Dorando Pietri was controversially disqualified after coming home first in the marathon, when race officials took pity on him after he collapsed from exhaustion after entering the stadium and helped him across the line.  A versatile athlete who raced successfully at distances from 400m up to 3,000m, Lunghi was national champion nine times in six events and is considered the first great star of Italian track and field.  An all-round sportsman, Lunghi was a talented gymnast, swimmer and boxer, but after winning a 3,000m-race in his home city he was encouraged to develop his potential as a runner by joining Sport Pedestre Genova, at the time the most important athletics club in Liguria.  Read more…

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15 March

NEW - Gianluca Festa - footballer

Sardinian became a favourite in England

The footballer and coach Gianluca Festa, who played 177 matches in Italy’s Serie A but is best remembered as the first Italian defender to sign for a club in England’s Premier League, was born on this day in 1969 in Cagliari.  Festa joined Middlesbrough in January 1997 after manager Bryan Robson agreed to pay Inter-Milan £2.7million for the centre-back, who joined his Italian compatriot Fabrizio Ravanelli at the northeast England club.  Ravanelli had arrived in England the previous summer as one of a number of Italian stars to move from Serie A, a sign that the Premier League was beginning to challenge Serie A for the right to be called Europe’s top league.  Chelsea had signed Gianluca Vialli from Juventus and Roberto Di Matteo from Lazio, to be joined by Parma’s Gianfranco Zola later in the autumn, and Sheffield Wednesday had bought Festa’s former Inter teammate Benito Carbone.  Four of those five were forwards - Di Matteo operated in midfield - and Middlesbrough, who had been promoted in 1995 but were finding their second season difficult, broke new ground by tapping into Italy’s reputation for producing top-quality defenders.  Read more…

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Salvator Rosa – artist

Exciting Baroque painter inspired others

Salvator Rosa, a fiery and flamboyant character who was a poet and actor as well as an artist, died on this day in 1673 in Rome.  One of the least conventional artists of 17th century Italy, he was adopted as a hero by painters of the Romantic movement in the 18th and 19th centuries.  He mainly painted landscapes, but also depicted scenes of witchcraft, revealing his interest in the less conventional ideas of his age. These scenes were also sometimes the background for his etchings and the satires he wrote.  Rosa was born in Arenella on the outskirts of Naples. His father, a land surveyor, wanted him to become a lawyer or priest and entered him in the convent of the Somaschi Fathers.  Rosa was interested in art and secretly learnt about painting with his uncle and his brother-in-law, Francesco Fracanzano, who was a pupil of Jose de Ribera. Rosa later became an apprentice to Aniello Falcone, working with him on his battle scenes.  His own paintings featured landscapes overgrown with vegetation and beach scenes with caves, peopled with shepherds, seamen, soldiers and bandits.  Read more…

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Cesare Beccaria - jurist and criminologist

Enlightened philosopher seen as father of criminal justice

The jurist and philosopher Cesare Beccaria, who is regarded as one of the greatest thinkers of the so-called Age of Enlightenment in the 18th century, and whose writings had a profound influence on justice systems all over the world, was born on this day in 1738 in Milan.  As the author of a treatise On Crimes and Punishments (1764), which was a ground-breaking work in the field of criminal law and the approach to punishing offenders, Beccaria is considered by many academics to be the father of criminal justice.  The treatise, which Beccaria compiled when he was only 26 years old, condemned the death penalty on the grounds that the state does not possess the right to take lives and declared torture to be a barbaric practice with no place in a civilised, measured society.  It outlined five principles for an effective system of criminal justice: that punishment should have had a preventive deterrent function as opposed to being retributive; that punishment should be proportionate to the crime committed; that the probability of punishment should be seen as a more effective deterrent than its severity.  Read more…

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The murder of Julius Caesar

He came, saw, conquered... and was assassinated

Statesman and soldier Gaius Julius Caesar was murdered on this day in 44 BC in Rome.  His death made the Ides of March, the day on the Roman calendar devised by Caesar that corresponds to 15 March, a turning point in Roman history, one of the events that marked the transition from the Roman Republic to the Roman Empire.  Caesar had made his mark as a soldier in Asia Minor and Spain and established himself as a politician, making useful allies.  But his invasion of Gaul took several years and was the most costly and destructive campaign ever undertaken by a Roman commander. Afterwards, Caesar crossed the Rubicon - a river that formed a northern border of Italy - with a legion of troops, entered Rome illegally, and established himself as a dictator dressed in royal robes.  On the Ides of March, Caesar was stabbed to death by a group of rebellious senators led by Marcus Junius Brutus.  His adopted heir, Octavian, later known as Augustus, rose to power afterwards and the Roman Empire began.  Far from sealing his reputation as a vainglorious tyrant, his assassins, Brutus, Cassius and the others, succeeded only in clinching Caesar’s historical immortality.  Read more…

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Giuseppe Mezzofanti - hyperpolyglot

Roman Catholic Cardinal could speak 38 languages

The death occurred in Rome on this day in 1849 of Cardinal Giuseppe Caspar Mezzofanti, a prodigiously talented academic renowned for his command of multiple foreign languages.  Defined as a hyperpolyglot - someone who is fluent in six languages or more - Mezzofanti is said to have full command of at least 38.  The majority were European, Mediterranean or Middle Eastern languages - mainstream and regional - but he was also said to be fluent in Chinese languages, Russian, plus Hindi and Gujarati.  His fame was such that he became something of an international celebrity, although he never actually left Italy, living the early part of his life in his home city of Bologna, before moving to Rome.  Visiting dignitaries from all over the world would ask to be introduced to him, ready to be awestruck as he slipped effortlessly into their native tongue.  There is an abundance of stories illustrating his extraordinary gift.  As a boy, working in the workshop in Bologna of his father, Francis, a carpenter, he is said to have overheard from a neighbouring building a priest giving lessons in Latin and Greek and later recalled every word, despite never having seen a Latin or Greek book.  Read more…

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Gianluca Festa - footballer

Sardinian became a favourite in England

Gianluca Festa is currently coach of the
Greek Super League side AEL

The footballer and coach Gianluca Festa, who played 177 matches in Italy’s Serie A but is best remembered as the first Italian defender to sign for a club in England’s Premier League, was born on this day in 1969 in Cagliari.

Festa joined Middlesbrough in January 1997 after manager Bryan Robson agreed to pay Inter-Milan £2.7 million for the centre-back, who joined his Italian compatriot Fabrizio Ravanelli at the northeast England club.

Ravanelli had arrived in England the previous summer as one of a number of Italian stars to move from Serie A, a sign that the Premier League was beginning to challenge Serie A for the right to be called Europe’s top league.  Chelsea had signed Gianluca Vialli from Juventus and Roberto Di Matteo from Lazio, to be joined by Parma’s Gianfranco Zola later in the autumn, and Sheffield Wednesday had bought Festa’s former Inter teammate Benito Carbone.

Four of those five were forwards - Di Matteo operated in midfield - and Middlesbrough, who had been promoted in 1995 but were finding their second season difficult, broke new ground by tapping into Italy’s reputation for producing top-quality defenders.

Festa was unable to prevent Middlesbrough’s relegation in the 1996-97 season but helped them reach the final of the FA Cup, scoring against Chesterfield in the semi-final and having a goal controversially disallowed for offside against Chelsea in the final at Wembley, which the London team won 2-0 with Di Matteo one of the goalscorers.

Festa spent five and a half seasons
in the red shirt of Middlesbrough

Ravanelli left to join Marseille at the end of that season but Festa stayed, helping Middlesbrough win promotion back to the Premier League at the first attempt and to stay in the top division throughout the rest of his time with the club, where he remained for five and a half seasons, becoming a favourite with supporters.

A multi-talented sportsman who excelled in martial arts and was a national junior champion at tennis, Festa joined his hometown club Cagliari as a schoolboy, making his senior debut in 1986 aged 17. Cagliari dropped to the third tier of Italy’s football pyramid at the start of Festa’s career but after appointing Claudio Ranieri as coach won consecutive promotions and were back in Serie A for the 1990-91 season.

Festa’s outstanding performances soon attracted the attention of other clubs and signed for Inter in 1993. He did not impress coach Osvaldo Bagnoli, who transferred him to Roma, but was back at San Siro within a year and shone under new coach Ottavio Bianchi, going on to make 70 appearances for the nerazzurri before earning his move to England.

After leaving Teesside in 2002, he helped another English team, Portsmouth, win promotion to the Premier League but did not play for them in the top division, instead returning to Cagliari, taking part in another promotion-winning season before winding down his playing career by turning out for a number of local teams in Sardinia while preparing for a career in coaching.

Following a short stint as assistant manager at Cagliari in his first appointment, Festa managed the small Lombardy club Lumezzane before briefly returning to England, where Leeds United’s Italian chairman Massimo Cellino invited him to help with training sessions and considered appointing him manager, although in the end he chose another candidate.

Back in Italy, Festa had two unsuccessful spells as head coach of Cagliari and then Como. He is currently in his second term in charge of AEL in the Greek Super League, based in the city of Larissa.

Cagliari's historic centre has
many steep, narrow alleys

Travel tip:

Cagliari is the capital of the island of Sardinia, an industrial centre and one of the largest ports in the Mediterranean. Yet it is also a city of considerable beauty and history, most poetically described by the novelist DH Lawrence when he visited in the 1920s. As he approached from the sea, Lawrence set his eyes on the confusion of domes, palaces and ornamental facades which, he noted, seemed to be piled on top of one another. He compared it to Jerusalem, describing it as 'strange and rather wonderful, not a bit like Italy.’  What he saw was Cagliari’s charming historic centre, known as Castello, inside which the city’s university, cathedral and several museums and palaces - plus many bars and restaurants - are squeezed into a network of narrow alleys.

The spectacular Stadio Giuseppe Meazza at San
Siro is home to Inter and AC Milan

Travel tip:

Gianluca Festa had success in Italy with Internazionale, the club usually known as Inter-Milan, playing at the magnificent Stadio Giuseppe Meazza, in the San Siro district of northwest Milan. The stadium, which can accommodate almost 80,000 spectators, was completed in its original form in 1926. A number of extensive renovations, the last of which was completed ahead of the 1990 World Cup finals, gave the stadium its distinctive appearance, with its top tier supported by 11 cylindrical towers which incorporate spiral walkways. Giuseppe Meazza, from whom the stadium takes its name, spent 14 years as a player and three terms as manager at Inter.  Since 1947, Inter and their city rivals AC Milan have shared the stadium.

Also on this day:

44BC: The death of Julius Caesar

1673: The death of artist Salvator Rosa

1738: The birth of criminologist Cesare Beccaria

1849: The death of hyperpolyglot Cardinal Giuseppe Mezzofanti

(Cagliari picture by Juli Kosolapova on Unsplash; Stadio Giuseppe Meazza by Clemens Teichmann from Pixabay)

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14 March

Giangiacomo Feltrinelli – publisher

Accidental death of an aristocratic activist

Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, a leading European publisher and one of Italy’s richest men, died on this day in 1972 after being blown up while trying to ignite a terrorist bomb on an electricity pylon at Segrate near Milan.  It was a bizarre end to the life and career of a man who had helped revolutionise Italian book publishing. He became famous for his decision to translate and publish Boris Pasternak’s novel Doctor Zhivago after the manuscript was smuggled out of the Soviet Union, where it had been banned on the grounds of being anti-Soviet.  This was an event that shook the Soviet empire and led to Pasternak winning the Nobel Prize for Literature.  Feltrinelli also started the first chain of book shops in Italy, which still bear his name.   He was born in 1926 into a wealthy, monarchist family. At the instigation of his mother, Feltrinelli was created Marquess of Gargnano when he was 12 by Benito Mussolini.  During the Second World War, the family left their home, Villa Feltrinelli, north of Salò on Lake Garda to make way for Mussolini to live there. But in the later stages of the war, Feltrinelli enrolled in the Italian Communist Party and fought against the Germans and the remnants of Mussolini’s regime.  From 1949 onwards, Feltrinelli collected documents for the Giangiacomo Feltrinelli Library in Milan.  Read more…

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Victor Emmanuel II

The first king to rule over a united Italy

King Victor Emmanuel II was born Vittorio Emanuele Maria Alberto Eugenio Ferdinando Tommaso on this day in 1820 in Turin.  He was proclaimed the first king of a united Italy in 1861 by the country’s new parliament and in 1870, after the French withdrew, he entered the city of Rome and set up the new Italian capital there. The Italian people called him Padre della Patria - Father of the Fatherland.  Born Prince Victor Emmanuel of Savoy, he was the eldest son of Charles Albert, Prince of Carignano, and Maria Theresa of Austria. His father succeeded a distant cousin as King of Sardinia- Piedmont in 1831.  In 1842 Victor Emmanuel married his cousin Adelaide of Austria and was styled as the Duke of Savoy before becoming King of Sardinia-Piedmont after his father abdicated the throne following a humiliating military defeat by the Austrians at the Battle of Novara.  In 1852 Victor Emmanuel appointed Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour as Prime Minister of Piedmont-Sardinia, who turned out to be a shrewd politician and masterminded his campaign to rule over a united Italy.   Read more…

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Giovanni Schiaparelli - astronomer

Discoveries sparked belief there was life on Mars

The astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli, whose observations in the late 19th century gave rise to decades of popular speculation about possible life on Mars, was born on this day in 1835 in Savigliano, about 60km (37 miles) south of Turin.  Schiaparelli worked for more than 40 years at the Brera Observatory in Milan, most of that time as its director.  It was in 1877 that he made the observations that were to cause so much excitement, a year notable for a particularly favourable 'opposition' of Mars, when Mars, Earth and the Sun all line up so that Mars and the Sun are on directly opposite sides of Earth, making the surface of Mars easier to see.  Oppositions occur every two years or so but because the orbit of Mars is more elliptical than Earth's there are points at which it is much closer to the Sun than at others.  An opposition that coincides with one of these points is much rarer, probably taking place only once in a lifetime, if that.  Schiaparelli was deeply fascinated with Mars and knew that this opposition gave him the opportunity of his lifetime to make a detailed survey of the red planet and made every effort to ensure his vision and his senses were as sharp as they could be when he put his eye to the telescope.  Read more…

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