9 August

Romano Prodi – politician

Il professore became prime minister and European Commission president

Romano Prodi, who has twice served as prime minister of Italy, was born on this day in 1939 in Scandiano in Emilia-Romagna.  A former academic, who was nicknamed Il professore by the Italians, Prodi was also president of the European Commission from 1999 to 2004.  Prodi graduated from the Catholic University in Milan in 1961 and studied as a postgraduate at the London School of Economics.  After moving up to become professor of economics at Bologna University, Prodi served the Italian government as minister for industry in 1978.  In 1996 after two productive stints as chairman of the Institute for Industrial Reconstruction, Prodi set his sights on becoming Italy’s prime minister and built a centre-left base of support known as the Olive Tree coalition.  While Silvio Berlusconi used television to campaign, Prodi went on a five-month bus tour around Italy, calling for more accountability in government. His approach appealed to the voters and his coalition won by a narrow margin.  Prodi was appointed prime minister of Italy for the first time on May 17, 1996.  He remained prime minister for two years and four months.  Read more…

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Leaning Tower of Pisa

Poor foundations created tourist attraction by accident

Work began on the construction of a freestanding bell tower for the Cathedral in Pisa on this day in 1173.  The tower’s famous tilt began during the building process. It is believed to have been caused by the laying of inadequate foundations on ground that was too soft on one side to support the weight of the structure.  The tilt became worse over the years and restoration work had to be carried out at the end of the 20th century amid fears the tower would collapse.  At its most extreme the tower leaned at an angle of 5.5 degrees but since the restoration work undergone between 1990 and 2001 the tower leans at about 3.99 degrees.  The identity of the architect responsible for the design of the tower is not clear but the problem with the structure began after work had progressed to the second floor in 1178.  It is thought the tower would have toppled had construction not been halted for almost a century while Pisa, a Tuscan seaport, fought battles with Genoa, Lucca and Florence. This allowed time for the soil beneath the tower to settle.  When construction resumed in 1272, the upper floors were built with one side taller than the other to compensate for the tilt.  Read more…

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Filippo Inzaghi - football manager

World Cup winning player turned successful coach

The former Azzurri striker Filippo Inzaghi, who was a member of Italy’s 2006 World Cup-winning squad, was born on this day in 1973 in Piacenza.  A traditional goal poacher, known more for his knack of being in the right place at the right moment than for a high level of technical skill, Inzaghi scored 313 goals in his senior career before retiring as a player in 2012 and turning to coaching. He spent the 2019-20 season in charge of Serie B side Benevento, near Naples.  Inzaghi came off the substitutes’ bench to score the second goal as Italy beat the Czech Republic 2-0 to clinch their qualification for the knock-out stage of the 2006 World Cup in Germany but found it impossible to win a starting place in competition with Luca Toni, Alberto Gilardino, Francesco Totti and Alessandro Del Piero in Marcello Lippi’s squad.  He also picked up a runners-up medal in Euro 2000, hosted jointly by Belgium and the Netherlands, where he scored against Turkey in the opening group game and against Romania in the quarter-final but was overlooked by coach Dino Zoff in his team for the final.  Read more…

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8 August

Dino De Laurentiis – film producer

Campanian pasta seller helped make Italian cinema famous 

The producer of hundreds of hit films, Agostino ‘Dino’ De Laurentiis was born on this day in 1919 at Torre Annunziata, near Naples in Campania.  He made Italian cinema famous internationally, producing Federico Fellini’s Oscar- winning La strada in 1954 in Rome.  After moving to the US he enjoyed further success with the film Serpico in 1973.  De Laurentiis was the son of a pasta manufacturer for whom he worked as a salesman during his teens.  While selling pasta in Rome in the 1930s he decided on impulse to enrol at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in the city as an actor.  He quickly realised he had more talent for producing and after gaining experience in the different sectors of the industry made his first film, L’amore canta - Love Song - in 1941 when he was just 22.  After serving in the army during the Second World War, De Laurentiis became an executive producer at one of Rome’s emerging film companies, Lux.  Among the films he produced for Lux was Riso amaro - Bitter Rice - starring Silvana Mangano, whom he later married and had four children with. The film was a box-office success both at home and abroad.  Read more…

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Danilo Gallinari - basketball player

Giant from Lodi province who plays in America’s NBA

Danilo Gallinari, the only Italian-born player currently active in America’s National Basketball Association, was born on this day in 1988 in Sant’Angelo Lodigiano in Lombardy.  Only nine Italian-born players have participated in the NBA – America’s premier basketball league – since its formation in 1946.  Gallinari, who stands 6ft 10ins tall, has played for six NBA teams, the latest of which is Boston Celtics. Previously he had played for New York Knicks, under the coaching of Mike D’Antoni, is an American-born former player who is now an Italian citizen, the Denver Nuggets, Los Angeles Clippers, Oklahoma City Thunder and Atlanta Hawks.  Gallinari, whose father, Vittorio, played professional basketball for teams in Milan, Pavia, Bologna and Verona, began his career in 2004 with Casalpusterlengo, a third-level Italian team from a town about 25km (15 miles) from his home in Sant’Angelo Lodigiano.  He moved up a tier in 2005 by joining Armani Jeans Milano and then Edimes Pavia, where in 2006 he was named best Italian player in the Italian League Second Division, despite missing half the season through injury.  Read more…

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Ugo Bassi - priest and patriot

Unarmed chaplain was a follower of Garibaldi

Catholic priest Ugo Bassi was executed by firing squad on this day in 1849 in Bologna.  Bassi had been a preacher of eloquent sermons that attracted large crowds and had travelled all over Italy helping the poor, often himself not having enough food to eat.  He was also strongly patriotic and had been a follower of Giuseppe Garibaldi in his fight for a united, independent kingdom of Italy. It was while he was with Garibaldi’s army battling French troops loyal to the Pope in Rome that he was captured and sentenced to death on a false charge of carrying a weapon.  His execution was said to have enraged Liberals all over Europe.  Bassi was born in 1801 in Cento, a small town in the province of Ferrara, in what is now Emilia Romagna. Although he was baptised as Giuseppe Bassi, he later changed his name to Ugo in honour of the patriotic and revolutionary poet, Ugo Foscolo.  An unhappy love affair led to Bassi becoming a novice in the Barnabite order at the age of 18 and, after studying in Rome, he entered the priesthood in 1833.  In 1848, when the revolutionary movement began in Italy, Pope Pius IX was known to be an Italian nationalist and liberal.  Read more…

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Leo Chiosso – songwriter

Writer of lyrics and scripts was inspired by crime fiction

Prolific songwriter Leo Chiosso was born on this day in 1920 in Chieri, a town to the south of Turin in Piedmont.  He became well known for the songs he wrote in partnership with Fred Buscaglione, a singer and musician, but Chiosso also wrote many scripts for television and cinema.  Chiosso met Buscaglione in 1938 in the nightclubs of Turin, where Buscaglione was working as a jazz singer. They formed a songwriting duo that went on to produce more than 40 songs.  However, their friendship was interrupted by the Second World War.  Chiosso was taken prisoner and deported to Poland, where he became friends with the writer Giovanni Guareschi, while Buscaglione was sent to a US internment camp in Sardinia.  It was only when Chiosso heard Buscaglione playing in a musical broadcast by the Allied radio station in Cagliari that he knew his friend was still alive.  They were reunited in Turin after the war and continued to write songs together. Chiosso was an avid reader of American crime fiction, which inspired his lyrics and also suited Buscaglione’s amiable gangster image.  Their first hit was Che bambola in 1956, which turned humorous tough guy Buscaglione into a celebrity.  A subsequent hit was Love in Portofino, recently recorded by Andrea Bocelli and also the inspiration for one of his albums.  Read more…

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7 August

Vincenzo Scamozzi – architect

Follower of Palladio had his own distinctive style

The architect and writer Vincenzo Scamozzi, whose work in the second half of the 16th century had a profound effect on the landscape of Vicenza and Venice, died on this day in 1616 in Venice. Scamozzi’s influence was later to spread far beyond Italy as a result of his two-volume work, L’idea dell’Architettura Universale - The idea of a universal architecture - which was one of the last Renaissance works about the theory of architecture. Trained by his father, Scamozzi went on to study in Venice and Rome and also travelled in Europe. The classical influence of Andrea Palladio is evident in many of the palaces, villas and churches that Scamozzi designed in Vicenza, Venice and Padua.  His work influenced English neoclassical architects such as Inigo Jones and many others who came after him.  Scamozzi was also an important theatre architect and stage set designer. He completed Palladio’s Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza in 1585, adding his own design for a stage set constructed of timber and plaster, using trompe-l'œil techniques to create the appearance of long streets receding to a distant horizon.  Read more…

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Giorgetto Giugiaro - automobile designer 

Creative genius behind many of the world’s most popular cars

Giorgetto Giugiaro, who has been described as the most influential automotive designer of the 20th century, was born on this day in 1938 in Garessio, a village in Piedmont about 100km (62 miles) south of Turin.  In a career spanning more than half a century, Giugiaro and his companies have designed around 200 different cars, from the high-end luxury of Aston Martin, Ferrari, Maserati and DeLorean to the mass production models of Fiat, Volkswagen, Hyundai, Daewoo and SEAT.  The Volkswagen Golf and the Fiat Panda, two of the most successful popular cars of all time, were Giugiaro’s concepts.  In 1999, a jury of more than 120 journalists from around the world named Giugiaro “Designer of the Century.”  Giugiaro’s father and grandfather both painted in oils and Giugiaro became passionately interested in art. He enrolled at the University of Turin to study art and technical design.  He took an interest in styling automobiles only after one of his professors suggested that the motor industry would pay big money for someone of his artistic vision who could come up with elegant and practical designs.  Read more…

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Alfredo Catalani - composer

Music from Loreley and La Wally lives on 

Opera composer Alfredo Catalani died on this day in 1893 in Milan at the age of just 39.  He is best remembered for his operas, Loreley, written in 1890, and La Wally, written in 1892, which are still to this day passionately admired by music experts.  Catalani was born in Lucca in Tuscany in 1854 and went to train at the Milan Conservatoire.  His work is said to show traces of Wagner and his style sometimes resembled that of Massenet and Puccini but his early operas were not successful.  Loreley premiered at the Teatro Regio in Turin in 1890. Later it was performed at Covent Garden in London in 1907 and in Chicago in 1919.  La Wally was first performed at Teatro alla Scala in Milan in 1892 to great acclaim.  The opera is best known for its aria, Ebben? Ne andro lontana - Well then, I’ll go far away - sung when Wally decides to leave her home forever.  American soprano Wilhelmenia Fernandez sang this aria in the 1981 film, Diva, in which a young Parisian is obsessed with an American soprano.  In the opera, the heroine throws herself into an avalanche at the end, a scene which is difficult to stage in the theatre and therefore the opera is not performed regularly, but Wally’s principal aria is still sung frequently.  Read more…

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Gerry Scotti - television show host

One-time politician who presented Chi vuol essere milionario?

Gerry Scotti, the host of Italy’s equivalent of Who Wants to be a Millionaire? and one of the most familiar faces on Italian television, was born on this day in 1956 in Camporinaldo, an agricultural village in Lombardy.  The presenter, whose career in television began in the 1980s, was also a member of the Italian Chamber of Deputies between 1987 and 1992, having won the Lombardy 1 district in the Milan college for Bettino Craxi’s Italian Socialist Party.  But he is best known as the face of Chi vuol essere milionario?, which he fronted when it launched in Italy in 2000 and continued in the role after Italy’s entry into the single currency in 2002 required the show to make a subtle change of name.  Originally Chi vuol essere miliardario – billionaire – the title was changed to milionario – millionaire – with a new top prize of 1,000,000 euro replacing the 1,000,000,000 lire of the original.  Scotti continued to host the show until it aired for the last time in Italy in 2011, at which time he held a Guinness World Record for the number of editions presented of the show, which was created for the British network ITV in 1998 and exported to 160 countries. Read more…

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6 August

Marisa Merlini - actress

Fifties star who turned down Oscar-winning role

The actress Marisa Merlini, whose 60-year movie career was at its peak in the 1950s and early 1960s, was born in Rome on this day in 1923.  Although she had built a solid reputation in a string of movies as the foil to the comedic genius of Totó, the role with which Merlini is most often associated is the midwife Annarella in Luigi Comencini’s 1953 romantic comedy Pane, amore e fantasia - Bread, Love and Dreams - which presented an idyllic view of Italian rural life.  The movie won a Silver Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival and Merlini’s performance was hailed by both audiences and critics, bringing many offers to play similar characters.  Co-star Vittorio De Sica was impressed with Merlini’s acting skills and when he turned to directing he had her earmarked for the part of Cesira, the widowed shopkeeper in La Ciociara, the 1960 wartime drama based on Alberto Moravia’s novel Two Women.  It was a chance for Merlini to break free of her comedy typecasting and prove herself as a serious actress. Yet she turned down the role, deciding that at 36 she was not yet ready to play older women. The part instead went to Sophia Loren, whose portrayal of Cesira won her an Oscar for Best Actress.  Read more…

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Domenico Modugno – singer and songwriter

Artist who gave us a song that conjures up Italy

Domenico Modugno, who was one of the writers of the iconic Italian song, Volare, died on this day in 1994 in Lampedusa, the island off Sicily.  Modugno wrote Volare with Franco Migliacci and performed it in the San Remo music festival in 1958 with Johnny Dorelli.  Sometimes referred to as Nel blu dipinto di blu, the song won San Remo and became a hit all over the world. It was the Italian entry in the 1958 Eurovision song contest. It came only third, yet received two Grammy Awards and sold more than 22 million copies.  Modugno was born in 1928 at Polignano a Mare near Bari in Apulia. After completing his military service he enrolled in drama school and had a number of parts in films while still studying.  The success of Volare proved to be the turning point in his career. He won the San Remo music festival again in 1959 and came second in 1960.  He also represented Italy in the Eurovision song contest for a second time in 1959. In 1962 he won San Remo for a third time and represented Italy at Eurovision again in 1966 with his song Dio come ti amo. It was recorded in Italian and also in English as Oh How Much I Love You by other artists.  Read more…

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Barbara Strozzi – composer

One of few 17th century women to have her own music published

The talented singer and composer Barbara Strozzi was baptised on this day in 1619 in the Cannaregio district of Venice.  Strozzi had been recognised by the poet and librettist Giulio Strozzi as his adopted daughter. It was thought at the time she was likely to have been an illegitimate daughter he had fathered with his servant, Isabella Garzoni.  Giulio Strozzi encouraged his adopted daughter’s musical talent, even creating an academy where she could perform to an audience. She became one of only a few women in the 17th century to publish her own compositions.  The Academy of the Unknown - Accademia degli Incogniti - was a circle of intellectuals in Venice that met to discuss literature, ethics, aesthetics, religion and the arts. They were supporters of Venetian opera in the late 1630s and 1640s. Giulio Strozzi formed a musical sub-group, Academy of the Like-Minded - Accademia degli Unisoni - where Barbara Strozzi performed as a singer and even suggested topics for discussion.  In addition to her vocal talent she showed herself to be a gifted composer and so her father arranged for her to study with the composer, Francesco Cavalli.  Read more…

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Battle of Meloria

Naval loss that sparked decline of Pisa as trading power

The decline of the Republic of Pisa as one of Italy’s major naval and commercial powers began with a catastrophic defeat at the Battle of Meloria on this day in 1284.  A fleet of 72 galleys was routed by the forces of the rival Ligurian Sea port of Genoa in a confrontation fought close to the islet of Meloria, about 10km (6 miles) off the coast, near what is now Livorno.  More than 5,000 Pisan crew were killed with 10 galleys sunk and at least 25 captured before other vessels fled the scene and the Genovese claimed victory.  Pisa and Genoa had once been allies, joining forces to drive the Saracens out of Sardinia in the 11th century, but subsequently became fierce rivals for trade, particularly from the eastern Mediterranean and the Byzantine Empire.  The city’s participation in the Crusades secured valuable commercial positions for Pisan traders in Syria, and thereafter Pisa grew in strength to rival Genoa and Venice.  However, in the 13th century, Genoa conquered numerous settlements in Crimea, establishing a colony at Caffa. The Byzantine Empire granted free trading rights to Genoa, increasing their wealth and simultaneously reducing commercial opportunities for Venice and Pisa.  Read more…

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