10 April

NEW - Nilde Iotti – politician

The best President of the Republic that Italy never had

Leonilde Iotti, who was later known as Nilde Iotti and became Italy’s most important and respected female politician, was born on this day in 1920 in Reggio Emilia.  She was both the first female president of the Chamber of Deputies of the Italian parliament and the longest serving, occupying the position from 1979 to 1992.   Her father, Egidio, was a socialist trade unionist but he died when she was a teenager. Thanks to a scholarship, she was able to attend the Catholic University of Milan. She graduated in 1942 and joined the National Fascist Party, which she was obliged to do in order to become a teacher.  Iotti was an underground member of the Italian Communist Party (PCI) and during World War II she was an active member of the Resistance movement setting up and leading women’s defence groups.  After the war, Iotti was elected to the Constituent Assembly and was one of the 75 members who drafted the Constitution in 1946.  It was at this time that she started her relationship with the PCI leader, Palmiro Togliatti, who was 27 years older than her. They stayed together until his death in 1964.  To begin with their relationship was kept secret but, after an attempt on his life in 1948, it became public knowledge.  Read more...

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The Moby Prince disaster

Tragic toll of collision between ferry and tanker

The worst maritime catastrophe to occur in Italian waters in peacetime took place on this day in 1991 when a car ferry collided with an oil tanker near the harbour entrance at Livorno on the coast of Tuscany.  The collision sparked a fire that claimed the lives of 140 passengers and crew and left only one survivor.  The vessels involved were the MV Moby Prince, a car ferry en route from Livorno to Olbia, the coastal city in north-east Sardinia, and the 330-metres long oil tanker, Agip Abruzzo.  The ferry departed Livorno shortly after 22.00 for a journey scheduled to last eight and a half hours but had been under way for only a few minutes when it struck the Agip Abruzzo, which was at anchor near the harbour mouth.  The ferry’s prow sliced into one of the Agip Abruzzo's tanks, which contained 2,700 tonnes of crude oil.  The impact caused some oil to spill into the sea and a large amount to be sprayed over the ferry.  A fire broke out, which set light to the oil both on the surface of the water and on the ferry itself.  Within moments, the Moby Prince was engulfed in flames.  Although the loss of life was so tragically large the toll might have been much worse.  Read more…

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Giovanni Aldini - physicist

Professor thought to given Mary Shelley the idea for Frankenstein

The physicist and professor Giovanni Aldini, whose experiment in trying to bring life to a human corpse is thought to have inspired Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein, was born on this day in 1762 in Bologna.  The nephew of Luigi Galvani, who discovered the phenomenon that became known as galvanism, one of Aldini’s goals in life was to build on his uncle’s work in the field of bioelectricity.   Galvani’s discovery that the limbs of a dead frog could be made to move by the stimulation of electricity sparked an intellectual argument with his rival physicist Alessandro Volta that he found uncomfortable. When he was then removed from his academic and public positions after Bologna became part of the French Cisalpine Republic in the late 18th century, Galvani was unable to progress his experiments as he would have liked.  Aldini essentially picked up his uncle’s mantle and was determined to discover whether the effect of an electrical impulse on the body of a frog could be reproduced in a human being.  His most famous experiment came in 1803, when he was given permission to test his electrical equipment on the corpse of George Forster shortly after he had been hanged at Newgate Prison in London.  Read more…

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Jacopo Mazzoni – philosopher

Brilliant scholar could recite long passages from Dante

Jacopo Mazzoni, a University professor with a phenomenal memory who was a friend of Galileo Galilei, died on this day in 1598 in Ferrara in Emilia-Romagna.  Mazzoni, also sometimes referred to as Giacomo Mazzoni, was regarded as one of the most eminent scholars of his period. His excellent powers of recall made him adept at recalling passages from Dante, Lucretius, Virgil and other writers during his regular debates with prominent academics. He relished taking part in memory contests, which he usually won.  Mazzoni was born in Cesena in Emilia-Romagna in 1548 and was educated at Bologna in Hebrew, Greek, Latin, rhetoric and poetics. He later attended the University of Padua where he studied philosophy and jurisprudence.  He became an authority on ancient languages and philology and promoted the scientific study of the Italian language.  Although Mazzoni wrote a major work on philosophy, he became well known for his works on literary criticism, in particular for his writing in defence of Dante’s Divine Comedy - Discorso in Difesa Della Commedia della Divina Poeta Dante - published in 1572.  Read more…

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From Rome to the North Pole

Aeronautical history launched from Ciampino airport

On this day in 1926, an airship took off from Ciampino airport in Rome on the first leg of what would be an historic journey culminating in the first flight over the North Pole.  The expedition was the brainchild of the Norwegian polar explorer and expedition leader Roald Amundsen, but the pilot was the airship's designer, aeronautical engineer Umberto Nobile, who had an Italian crew.  They were joined in the project by millionaire American explorer Lincoln Ellsworth who, along with the Aero Club of Norway, financed the trip which was known as the Amundsen-Ellsworth 1926 Transpolar Flight.  Nobile - born in Lauro, near Avellino in Campania - designed the 160metres long craft on behalf of the Italian State Airship factory, who sold it to Ellsworth for $75,000.  Amundsen named the airship Norge, which means Norway in his native tongue.  The first leg of the flight north was due to have left Rome on 6 April but was delayed due to strong winds until the 10th.  The first stop-off point was at the Pulham Airship Station in England, from where it took off again for Oslo on 12 April. Three days later Nobile, Amundsen, Ellsworth and the crew flew on to Gatchina, near Leningrad, the journey taking 17 hours because of dense fog.  Read more…

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Agostino Bertani – physician and politician

Compassionate doctor was Garibaldi’s friend and strategist

Agostino Bertani, who worked with Giuseppe Mazzini and Giuseppe Garibaldi to liberate Italy, died on this day in 1886 in Rome.  He had been a surgeon in Garibaldi’s corps in the Austro-Sardinian War of 1859 and personally treated Garibaldi’s wounds after the military leader lost the Battle of Aspromonte in 1862.  Bertani became a hero to the Italian people for his work organising ambulances and medical services during Garibaldi’s campaigns and he became a close friend and strategist to the military leader.  Born in Milan in 1812, Bertani's family had many friends with liberal ideals and his mother took part in anti-Austrian conspiracies.  At the age of 23, Bertani graduated from the faculty of medicine at the Borromeo College in Pavia and became an assistant to the professor of surgery there.  He took part in the 1848 uprising in Milan and directed a military hospital for Italian casualties. He organised an ambulance service for soldiers defending Rome in 1849 and distinguished himself by his service in Genoa with Mazzini during the cholera epidemic of 1854.  In 1860 Bertani was one of the strategists who planned the attack on Sicily and Naples known as the Expedition of the Thousand.  Read more…

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Nilde Iotti – politician

'The best President of the Republic that Italy never had'

Iotti was the first woman to be elected
president of the Chamber of Deputies

Leonilde Iotti, who was later known as Nilde Iotti and became Italy’s most important and respected female politician, was born on this day in 1920 in Reggio Emilia.

She was both the first female president of the Chamber of Deputies of the Italian parliament and the longest serving, occupying the position from 1979 to 1992. 

One of the 75 politicians who drafted the Italian Constitution, she was a member of the Italian Communist Party (PCI) and its successor, the Democratic Party of the Left (PDS) for all of her political career.

Iotti's father, Egidio, was a socialist trade unionist but he died when she was a teenager. Thanks to a scholarship, she was able to attend the Catholic University of Milan. She graduated in 1942 and joined the National Fascist Party, which she was obliged to do in order to become a teacher.

At the same time, she was an underground member of the PCI and during World War II she was an active member of the Resistance movement setting up and leading women’s defence groups.

After the war, Iotti was elected to the Constituent Assembly and was one of the 75 members who drafted the Constitution in 1946.

It was at this time that she started her relationship with the PCI leader, Palmiro Togliatti, who was 27 years older than her. They stayed together until his death in 1964.

Iotti with Palmiro Togliatti, with whom she shared
her life for many years, pictured in Russia

To begin with their relationship was kept secret but, after an attempt on his life in 1948, it became public knowledge. Togliatti was shot three times near Palazzo Montecitorio, the seat of the Italian Chamber of Deputies in Rome. He was seriously wounded and for several days it was not certain that he would survive. He eventually recovered and was able to continue as head of the party until his death.

The Italian people and members of the PCI were opposed to their relationship because Togliatti was married with a son, but the couple remained committed to each other and eventually adopted a child together, Marisa Malagoli, the daughter of a worker killed during a demonstration.

In 1948 Iotti became a member of the Chamber of Deputies and in June 1979 she was elected president, in which position she was also Speaker of the House, gaining re-election in 1983 and 1987 for an unbroken tenure of 13 years.

In 1956 she became a member of the central committee of the PCI and became an integral part of the party leadership. She focused her activity on the relevance of the female role in the workplace and on civil rights. She was particularly involved in the campaign for the 1974 divorce referendum.

Iotti (right) with Marisa Maligola, the orphan she
and Togliatti adopted as a daughter 

In 1991 she supported the transformation of the PCI to the PDS and became a leading member of the renamed party. She was elected to the Chamber of Deputies again in the 1992, 1994 and 1996 elections.

Her name was mentioned in connection with the role of President of the Republic but she was never chosen. She has been widely spoken of as the best President of the Republic that Italy never had.

When Iotti retired in November 1999 due to ill health she had served continuously in the Italian parliament for 53 years.

Nilde Iotti died in Rome in December 1999. Before her state funeral, an all-women guard of honour stood by her coffin in the hall of the Chamber of Deputies where she had spent so much of her life. She was buried in the Cimitero del Verano, next to her lover, Togliatti, which had been her last wish.

The Basilica di San Prospero overlooks
an elegant square in Reggio Emilia

Travel tip:

Reggio Emilia, where Nilde Iotti was born, is an ancient walled city in the region of Emilia-Romagna, 28km (17 miles) southeast of Parma and 32km (20 miles) northwest of Modena. It is the birthplace of the poet, Ludovico Ariosto, and there is a statue of him in the centre of the city and you can see the villa the poet was born in near the municipal building. You can also see a villa outside the town, Il Mauriziano, where Ariosto spent time while he was governing the city on behalf of the Dukes of Ferrara.  Raggio Emilia is believed to have given Italy its tricolore national flag. There are historical records that suggest that a short-lived 18th century republic, the Repubblica Cispadana, had a flag of red, white and green that was decreed in Reggio Emilia in 1797. Notable buildings in the city include the Basilica della Ghiara and the 10th century Basilica di San Prospero, which overlooks the elegant Piazza of the same name.

The Palazzo Montecitorio has housed the Italian
Chamber of Deputies since 1918

Travel tip:

Palazzo Montecitorio in Rome is the seat of the Italian Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of the Italian Parliament. The building was originally designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini for Ludovico Ludovisi, the nephew of Pope Gregory XV. Following Italian unification, the palace was chosen as the seat of the Chamber of Deputies in 1871 but the building proved inadequate for their needs, with poor acoustics and a tendency to become overheated in summer and inhospitably cold in winter. After extensive renovations had been carried out, with many Stile Liberty touches introduced by the architect Ernesto Basile, the chamber returned to the palace in 1918.

Also on this day:

1598: The death of philosopher Jacopo Mazzoni

1762: The birth of physicist Giovanni Aldini

1886: The death of physician and politician Agostino Bertani

1892: An Italian airship completes the first flight over the North Pole

1991: The Moby Prince disaster

(Basilica di San Prospero picture by Paola da Reggio via Wikimedia Commons)

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9 April

Gian Maria Volonté – actor

Brilliant talent who played ‘spaghetti western’ parts for fun

Gian Maria Volonté, recognised as one of the finest character actors Italy has produced, was born on this day in 1933 in Milan.  Trained at the Silvio D’Amico National Academy of the Dramatic Arts in Rome, Volonté became famous outside Italy for playing the villain to Clint Eastwood’s hero in two movies in Sergio Leone’s western trilogy that were part of a genre dubbed the ‘spaghetti westerns’.  However, he insisted he accepted the chance to appear in A Fistful of Dollars (1964) – in which he appeared under the pseudonym John Wells - and For a Few Dollars More (1964) simply to earn some money and did not regard the parts of Ramon and El Indio as serious.  In Italy, it was for the much heavier roles given to him by respected directors such as Elio Petri and Francesco Rosi that he won huge critical acclaim.  A person known for a tempestuous private life, he was very strong playing complex and neurotic characters, while his left-wing political leanings attracted him to roles in which he had to portray individuals from real life.  He was a particular favourite of Rosi, the neo-realist director who directed him in five movies.  Read more…

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Patty Pravo - pop singer of enduring fame

Venetian artist's career has spanned 50 years

The pop singer Patty Pravo was born Nicoletta Strambelli on this day in 1948. Her career spans more than 50 years since she took her first steps on the road to fame with the release of her first single, Ragazzo Triste.  Pravo has recorded 27 albums and 52 singles, selling more than 110 million records, making her the third biggest selling Italian artist of all time.  Her album, Eccomi, was released in February 2016 following her ninth appearance at the Sanremo Music Festival, and she promoted the album with a tour of Italy. Born in Venice, she grew up in an intellectual environment. Family friends included Cardinal Angelo Roncalli - the future Pope John XXIII - the actor Cesco Baseggio, the soprano Toti dal Monte and the American poet Ezra Pound, who lived in Venice and would take the young Nicoletta for walks and buy her ice cream.  She would spend time too at the house of Peggy Guggenheim, the American socialite and art collector.  Read more…

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Treaty of Lodi

When the battles stopped (briefly) in northern Italy

The Treaty of Lodi, which brought peace between rival states in the north of Italy for 40 years, was signed on this day in 1454 at Lodi in Lombardy.  Also known as the Peace of Lodi, it established a balance of power among Venice, Milan, Naples, Florence and the Papal States.  Venice had been faced with a threat to its commercial empire from the Ottoman Turks and was eager for peace and Francesco Sforza, who had been proclaimed Duke by the people of Milan, was also keen for an end to the costly battles.  By the terms of the peace, Sforza was recognised as ruler of Milan and Venice regained its territory in northern Italy, including Bergamo and Brescia in Lombardy.  The treaty was signed at the Convent of San Domenico in Via Tito Fanfulla in Lodi, where a plaque today marks the building, no longer a convent.  Milan’s allies, Florence, Mantua and Genoa, and Venice’s allies, Naples, Savoy and Montferrat, had no choice but to agree.  A 25-year mutual defensive pact was agreed to maintain existing boundaries and an Italian league, Lega Italica, was set up.  The states promised to defend one another in the event of an attack.  Read more…

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8 April

Lorenzo the Magnificent - Renaissance ruler

Patron of the arts who sponsored Michelangelo and Botticelli

Lorenzo de’ Medici, the ruler of Florence usually known as Lorenzo the Magnificent, died on this day in 1492 in the Medici villa at Careggi, just to the north of the city.  He was only 43 and is thought to have developed gangrene as a result of an inherited genetic condition.  He had survived an assassination attempt 14 years earlier in what became known as the Pazzi Conspiracy, in which his brother, Giuliano, was killed.  The grandson of Cosimo de’ Medici, Lorenzo was a strict ruler but history has judged him as a benevolent despot, whose reign coincided with a period of stability and peace in relations between the Italian states.  He helped maintain the Peace of Lodi, a treaty agreed in 1454 between Milan, Naples and Florence which was signed by his grandfather.  However, he is most remembered as an enthusiastic patron of Renaissance culture, providing support for poets, scholars and artists, notably Michelangelo and Botticelli.  He contributed more than anyone to the flowering of Florentine genius during the second half of the 15th century.  Read more…

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Federico Caprilli - equestrian pioneer

Study of horses revolutionised jumping techniques

Federico Caprilli, the Italian cavalry officer who revolutionised the way horse riders jump fences, was born on this day in 1868 in Livorno.  One of four children born to Enrico Caprilli and his wife, Elvira, Federico was bent on an army career from an early age. He enrolled as a cadet at military college in Florence at 13 years old, subsequently transferring to Rome and then Modena. He had no riding experience at the start, and when he graduated with the rank of lieutenant, though an excellent gymnast and proficient fencer, his horsemanship was marked as ‘poor’.  Nonetheless, he was assigned to the Royal Piedmont cavalry regiment, where his job, at a time when the introduction of weapons such as the Gatling Gun was negating any battlefield advantage a soldier had from being mounted, was to train horses for new combat roles, such as springing surprise attacks in difficult terrain.  It was there that he observed the way horses jumped obstacles and concluded that conventional beliefs about the way a horse should be ridden over jumps were entirely wrong.  Until Caprilli came along, it was accepted that the rider should use long stirrups and approach a fence leaning back in the saddle.  Read more…

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Gaetano Donizetti - operatic genius

The day the music died

A prolific composer of operas in the first half of the 19th century, Gaetano Donizetti died on this day in 1848 in Bergamo in Lombardy.  Donizetti had returned to his native city after a brilliant international career to spend his last days in the Palazzo Scotti in the Città Alta, the upper town.  By then seriously ill, he was looked after by friends in the gracious surroundings of the palazzo until his death. His tomb is in the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore, where it is marked by a white, marble monument.  Donizetti has since become acknowledged as the greatest composer of lyrical opera of all time. He was a major influence on Verdi, Puccini and other composers who came after him.  His best and most famous operas are considered to be Lucia di Lammermoor, Don Pasquale and L’elisir d’amore.  In Via Sentierone in Bergamo’s lower town there is an elaborate white marble monument to the composer next to Teatro Donizetti, which was renamed in his honour in 1897 on the centenary of his birth.  Donizetti’s casa natale (birthplace), is in Borgo Canale just outside the walls of the upper town. It has now been declared a national monument and is open free to visitors every weekend.  Read more…

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Renzo De Felice - historian

Mussolini biographer whose views on fascism aroused anger

The controversial historian Renzo De Felice, best known for his 6,000-page four-volume biography of Benito Mussolini, was born on this day in 1929 in Rieti, the northernmost city in Lazio.  Although De Felice was Jewish and his other major work described in detail the persecution of Jews in Italy under Mussolini’s rule, he sparked considerable anger by arguing that the postwar world view of Fascism should be revised to recognise that the ideology in itself was not inherently evil.  De Felice contended that fascism as a political movement in Italy was not the same as Fascism as a regime, arguing that the former was a revolutionary middle-class ideology that had its roots in the progressive thinking of the Age of Enlightenment.  He argued that the ideology was effectively hijacked by Mussolini to provide the superstructure for his dictatorship and personal ambition and that fascism itself, as distinct from Mussolini’s interpretation, was a valid political concept, not just something to be demonized and dismissed in simplistic terms.  It was an argument that was respected by many intellectuals, even some who were staunchly anti-Fascist.  Read more…

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