22 November

NEW - Giuseppe Olmo - cycling champion and businessman

Olympic gold medallist set up prestige cycle brand

The road cyclist Giuseppe Olmo, who won a gold medal at the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles and later launched his own cycle-manufacturing business, was born on this day in 1911 in Celle Ligure, a fishing village about 40km (25 miles) southwest of Genoa on the Italian Riviera.  Olmo missed out on an individual medal in Los Angeles, finishing fourth behind compatriot Attilio Pavesi in the road race, but won gold as part of the winning Italy trio in the team event, alongside Pavesi and Guglielmo Segato.  He turned professional after the Olympics and, though his career was truncated somewhat by the cessation of the sport during World War Two, enjoyed some success.  Racing for the Fréjus team, he won the Milan-Turin race at the age of just 21 in 1932. After moving to the colours of Bianchi, Olmo won the prestigious Milan-San Remo race three years later and in 1938, the Giro dell’Emilia in 1936 and the Giro di Campania in 1938.  Olmo was somewhat unlucky in the Giro d’Italia. He finished third behind Vasco Bergamaschi in 1935 after winning four stages and wearing the leader’s pink jersey for seven days, and runner-up the following year despite winning 10 stages.  Read more…

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Alfonso II d’Este – Duke of Ferrara

Tasso’s patron raised Ferrara to the height of its glory

Alfonso II d’Este, who was to be the last Duke of Ferrara, was born on this day in 1533 in Ferrara in Emilia-Romagna.  Famous as the protector of the poet Torquato Tasso, Alfonso II also took a keen interest in music.  He was also the sponsor of the philosopher Cesare Cremonini, who was a friend of both Tasso and the scientist and astronomer Galileo Galilei.  Although he was married three times, he failed to provide an heir for the Duchy.  Alfonso was the eldest son of Ercole II d’Este and Renée de France, the daughter of Louis XII of France.  As a young man, Alfonso fought in the service of Henry II of France against the Habsburgs but soon after he became Duke in 1559 he was forced by Pope Pius IV to send his mother back to France because she was a Calvinist.  In 1583 he joined forces with the Emperor Rudolf II in his war against the Turks in Hungary.  Alfonso II was proficient in Latin and French as well as Italian and like his ancestors before him encouraged writers and artists. He welcomed the poet Tasso to his court in Ferrara and he wrote some of his most important poetry while living there, including his epic poem, Gerusalemme liberata.  Read more…

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Rocco Commisso - entrepreneur

US businessman with roots in Calabria

Rocco Commisso, the founder of the American cable TV provider Mediacom and owner of football clubs in the United States and Italy, was born on this day in 1949 in Marina di Gioiosa Ionica, a small seaside town in Calabria.  With annual revenues of more than $2,000 million, Mediacom is the fifth largest cable company in the US, having been launched from Commisso’s basement in 1995, when he began to buy up small community cable systems, mainly in the Midwest and Southeast. It now has its headquarters in Blooming Grove, New York.  Commisso, a football fan from his childhood, bought a majority stake in the New York Cosmos club in 2017 and completed the purchase of ACF Fiorentina in Italy two years later, with plans to return each club to its glory days of the past.  With a southwest aspect on the Ionian coast, Marina di Gioiosa Ionica is something of an idyllic spot today, blessed with wide beaches and clear inviting water. As Commisso was growing up, however, it was a relative deprived area as Italy struggled to rebuild after World War Two and it was not uncommon for families to leave the area in search of prosperity elsewhere.  Read more…

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Nevio Scala - footballer and coach

Led Parma to success in golden era of 1990s

Nevio Scala, a European Cup winner with AC Milan as a player and the most successful coach of Parma's golden era in the 1990s, was born on this day in 1947 in Lozzo Atestino, a small town in the Euganean Hills, just south of Padua.  A midfielder who also played for Roma, Vicenza and Internazionale at the top level of Italian football, Scala was never picked for his country but won a Serie A title and a European Cup-Winners' Cup in addition to the European Cup with AC Milan.  But his achievements with Parma as coach arguably exceeded even that, given that they were a small provincial club that had never played in Serie A when Scala was appointed.  He had given notice of his ability by almost taking the tiny Calabrian club Reggina to Serie A in 1989 only a year after winning promotion from Serie C, and needed only one season to take Parma to the top flight for the first time.  With the massive financial backing of Calisto Tanzi, the founder and chairman of the local dairy giants Parmalat, Scala then led Parma into a period of sustained success no one could have predicted.  Between 1991 and 1995, Parma won the Coppa Italia, the European Cup-Winners' Cup, the European Super Cup and the UEFA Cup.  Read more…

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Joe Adonis - Mafia boss

Boy from mountainous Campania who became powerful New York mobster

The Mafia criminal Joe Adonis, who at one time was effectively America’s senior gangster as chairman of the so-called ‘Commission’, was born Giuseppe Antonio Doto on this day in 1902 at Montemarano, a small town in mountainous Campania.  Doto became a friend and associate of the powerful Charles ‘Lucky’ Luciano, who would head one of the New York Mafia’s powerful Five Families.  As Adonis, Doto would emerge as a powerful figure in his own right in Brooklyn and Manhattan and later New Jersey.  Accounts of his arrival in the United States as a child vary. Many suppose that he travelled with his family among thousands of migrants from Italy who left for a new life in America in the 1900s, their names recorded at the immigrant inspection station on Ellis Island in 1909.  Others suggest that he arrived in 1915, having travelled as a stowaway on a liner from Naples. Either way, he appears to have settled in Brooklyn, where he quickly turned to crime, making money through stealing and picking pockets.  It was in partnership with Luciano and two up-and-coming figures in the Jewish-American underworld, Meyer Lansky and Bugsy Siegel, that he became involved in bootlegging. Read more…

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Bernardo Pasquini - composer

Talented musician wrote music for a queen

Baroque composer Bernardo Pasquini died on this day in Rome in 1710.  He is remembered as an important composer for the harpsichord and for his musical scores for operas. Along with his fellow composers Alessandro Scarlatti and Arcangelo Corelli, Pasquini was a member of the Arcadian Academy (Accademia degli Arcadi) which was set up in Rome by one of his patrons, Queen Christina of Sweden.  Pasquini enjoyed Queen Christina’s protection while he was living in Rome and produced several operas in her honour. These were staged in Rome initially and then replayed in theatres all over Italy.  Queen Christina had abdicated from the throne of Sweden in 1654, converted to Roman Catholicism and moved to live in Rome.  While living in the Palazzo Farnese, she opened up her home for members of the Arcadian Academy to enjoy music, theatre, literature and languages with her.  She became a cultural leader and protector of many Baroque artists, composers and musicians.  The Baroque period, which influenced sculpture, painting and architecture, as well as literature, dance, theatre and music, began in Rome around 1600.  Read more…

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Paolo Gentiloni – politician 

Italy’s 57th premier both noble and a Democrat

Italy’s prime minister from 2016 to 2018, Paolo Gentiloni, was born on this day in 1954 in Rome.  A member of the Democratic Party, Gentiloni was asked to form a Government in December 2016 by Italian President Sergio Mattarella.  A professional journalist before he entered politics, Gentiloni is a descendant of Count Gentiloni Silveri and holds the titles of Nobile of Filottranno, Nobile of Cingoli and Nobile of Macerata.  The word nobile, derived from the Latin nobilis, meaning honourable, indicates a level of Italian nobility ranking somewhere between the English title of knight and baron.  Gentiloni is related to the politician Vincenzo Ottorino Gentiloni, who was a leader of the Conservative Catholic Electoral Union and a key ally of Prime Minister Giovanni Giolitti, who held the office five times between 1892 and 1921.  Gentiloni attended the Classical Lyceum Torquato Tasso in Rome and went on to study at La Sapienza University in the city where he became a member of the Student Movement, a left wing youth organisation. He moved on to become a member of the Workers’ Movement for Socialism and graduated in Political Sciences.  Read more…

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Giuseppe Olmo - cycling champion and businessman

Olympic gold medallist set up prestige cycle brand

Giuseppe Olmo showed great
talent from an early age

The road cyclist Giuseppe Olmo, who won a gold medal at the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles and later launched his own cycle-manufacturing business, was born on this day in 1911 in Celle Ligure, a fishing village about 40km (25 miles) southwest of Genoa on the Italian Riviera.

Olmo missed out on an individual medal in Los Angeles, finishing fourth behind compatriot Attilio Pavesi in the road race, but won gold as part of the winning Italy trio in the team event, alongside Pavesi and Guglielmo Segato.

He turned professional after the Olympics and, though his career was truncated somewhat by the cessation of the sport during World War Two, enjoyed some success.

Racing for the Fréjus team, he won the Milan-Turin race at the age of just 21 in 1932. After moving to the colours of Bianchi, Olmo won the prestigious Milan-San Remo race three years later and in 1938, the Giro dell’Emilia in 1936 and the Giro di Campania in 1938.

Olmo was somewhat unlucky in the Giro d’Italia. He finished third behind Vasco Bergamaschi in 1935 after winning four stages and wearing the leader’s pink jersey for seven days, and runner-up the following year despite winning 10 stages - the same number Learco Guerra took as champion two years previously - as the overall classification went to Gino Bartali.

Olmo Biciclette was launched in 1939 and has supplied bikes for many professionals, as well producing them for the commercial market.

A youthful Olmo pictured with his mentor,
the Ligurian cyclist Giusppe Olivieri

Known often by his nickname Gepin, Olmo was the second of six brothers in his family. He first caught the eye in 1924 as a 13-year-old, when he impressed the Ligurian champion Giuseppe Olivieri, who asked Olmo’s father if he could become his coach.

Under Olivieri’s guidance, his talent came to the surface. He preceded his excellent performance at the 1932 Olympics by winning the Italian road championship in 1931 and finishing runner-up in the amateurs’ road race at the World championships in Copenhagen the same year.

As well as his race success, Olmo entered the record books in 1935 for  the longest distance covered in one hour on the track.

Riding an 8.5kg Bianchi bike at an almost deserted Vigorelli Velodrome on 31 October in Milan, having decided on his record attempt only 24 hours before it took place, Olmo became the first in history to break the 45km mark, recording a distance of 45.090km.

He held the record for less than a year, however. On 16 October in 1936, the Frenchman Maurice Richard, whose record Olmo took, reclaimed it, bettering his mark with 45.32km.

Olmo was planning for his life after retirement while he was still competing, opening the first Olmo Biciclette factory in partnership with his brothers, Franco, Giovanni and Michele, in Celle Ligure, in 1939.

The Olmo brand became
synonymous with quality

The company built its reputation on quality, value and cutting-edge technology, using the most advanced materials available to produce responsive bikes that proved to be both competitive and easy to handle.

Pierino Gavazzi, whose career wins included Milan-Sanremo and Paris-Brussels, the Vuelta a España winner Marino Lejarreta and three-times World champion Óscar Freire were among the professionals who enjoyed great success riding Olmo bikes.

Olmo, who was married with three daughters, died in Milan in 1992 but the company survived him, moving into the production of polyurethane flexible foams from a factory at Comun Nuovo, a municipality about 9km (six miles) south of Bergamo in Lombardy.

Bicycles carrying the Olmo brand, including the latest incarnation of the flagship Gepin model, are now produced and distributed by Montana Srl from their factory at Magliano Alpi in Piemonte, about 80km (50 miles) northwest of Celle Ligure.

Celle Ligure's sandy beach has helped make it a
popular destination for visitors to Liguria

Travel tip:

A lesser known gem of the Italian Riviera, Celle Ligure has grown around a picturesque former fishing village with a small sandy beach lined with pastel-coloured houses, behind which is a small, historic old town of narrow lanes. Founded in the 11th century near the Saint Beningo monastery, Celle Ligure came under the control of Genoa in the 13th century and enjoyed prosperity in the 17th and 18th centuries through trade with France, Spain and America. That ended, however, with the French occupation of Genoa in 1805. The arrival of a railway line in 1868 was the beginning of Celle Ligure’s evolution as a tourist destination, which underpins its economy today. As well as the attractions of the beach, Celle Ligure has a 17th century church, the Oratorio of San Michele, which features a polyptych by Perino del Vaga, a late Renaissance painter from Florence. As well as Giuseppe Olmo, the village is the birthplace of Francesco della Rovere, who as Pope Sixtus IV commissioned Michelangelo to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican. 

Sanremo is known for its fine Stile Liberty
buildings, such as its striking 1905 Casino

Travel tip: 

The Milan-Sanremo cycle race, won twice by Giuseppe Olmo, is one of the  sport’s oldest and most prestigious single-day contests, one of the five so-called Monuments in the European cycling calendar, the toughest and most demanding of the one-day events. First contested in 1907 and covering a distance of 286km (177 miles), the race followed a course said to have begun at the Conca Fallata Inn, next to a navigation basin on the Naviglio Pavese canal in Milan and ended on Corso Cavallotti on the outskirts of Sanremo, the seaside town on the coast of Liguria famed for its temperate Mediterranean climate.  Sanremo - 110km (68 miles) further west along the Ligurian coast from Celle Ligure, expanded rapidly in the mid-18th century, when the phenomenon of tourism began to take hold. It is characterised by many fine examples of Stile Liberty, the Italian variant of the Art Nouveau design and architectural style.

Also on this day:

1533: The birth of Alfonso II d’Este, Duke of Ferrara

1710: The death of Baroque composer Bernardo Pasquini

1902: The birth of Mafia boss Joe Adonis

1947: The birth of football coach Nevio Scala

1949: The birth of entrepreneur Rocco Commisso

1954: The birth of politician Paolo Gentiloni

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21 November

Festival of Madonna della Salute

Venetians celebrate their deliverance from the plague

Venice has held a festival on this day every year since 1681 to give thanks to Santa Maria della Salute for delivering the city from the plague.  A terrible epidemic hit Venice in 1630 during the war against Austria and in just 15 months 46,000 people died from the disease.  The epidemic was so bad that all the gondolas were painted black as a sign of mourning and they have remained like that ever since.  The Doge had called for people to pray to the Madonna to release the city from the grip of the plague and had vowed to dedicate a church to her if their prayers were answered.  When the plague ceased, in order to thank the Virgin Mary, the Senate commissioned Baldassare Longhena to design Santa Maria della Salute, a splendid baroque church on Punta della Dogana, a narrow finger of land between the Grand Canal and the Giudecca Canal.  Construction of the magnificent church began in 1631 and took 50 years to complete.  On the occasion of the inauguration in 1681, a bridge of galleys and ships was formed across the Grand Canal to allow a mass procession of the faithful to the Church.  Read more…

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Antonio Visentini – architect and engraver

His copies took Canaletto paintings to wider world

Antonio Visentini, whose engravings from Canaletto’s paintings helped the Venetian artist achieve popularity and earn commissions outside Italy, particularly in England, was born on this day in 1688 in Venice.  A pupil of the Baroque painter Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini, Visentini was commissioned by Canaletto’s agent, Joseph Smith, who was the British Consul in Venice, to produce engravings of Canaletto’s celebrated views of the city to be published as a catalogue.  Engraving itself was an intricate skill and in the days before photography anyone who could produce faithful copies of paintings or original art that could be printed on paper was much in demand.  Visentini embarked on his first series of 12 Canaletto views, mainly of canal scenes, in around 1726 and they were published in 1735. This was followed by two more series of engravings of Canaletto works arranged by Smith, which were published in 1742.  In all, Visentini copied some 38 Canaletto views, which not only furthered Canaletto’s career but his own.  Smith encouraged Canaletto to travel to England to paint views of London.  Read more…

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Pope Benedict XV

Humanitarian pope who tried to stop the war 

Pope Benedict XV,  who was pontiff for the whole of the First World War, was born on this day in 1854 in Genoa.  He tried to stop the war, which he described as ‘the suicide of a civilised Europe’, but when his attempts failed, he devoted himself to trying to alleviate the suffering.  Christened Giacomo Paolo Giovanni Battista della Chiesa, the future Pope Benedict XV was encouraged to study law by his family and attended the University of Genoa. Afterwards his father reluctantly agreed to let him study for the priesthood and he was allowed to move to Rome.  Pope Pius X made him Archbishop of Bologna in 1907 and a Cardinal in 1914.  He became Pope Benedict (Benedetto) XV in September 1914 after World War One was already under way.  The new Pope immediately tried to mediate to achieve a peaceful settlement but his attempts were rejected by all the parties involved.  He then concentrated on humanitarian works, such as the exchange of wounded prisoners of war and the distribution of food among starving people.  Although Benedict had been chosen at the age of 59 because the church was looking for a long-lasting Pope, he died in Rome in 1922.  Read more…

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Giorgio Amendola - politician and partisan

Anti-Mussolini activist who sought to moderate Italian Communism

The politician Giorgio Amendola, who opposed extremism on the right and left in Italy, was born on this day in 1907 in Rome.  Amendola was arrested for plotting against the Fascist regime of Benito Mussolini in the 1930s, fought with the Italian resistance in the Second World War and later worked to move the Italian Communist Party (PCI) away from the doctrines of Soviet Communism and Leninism towards a more moderate position acceptable in the mainstream of Italian politics.  Amendola was almost born to be a political thinker. His mother, Eva Kuhn, was an intellectual from Lithuania, his father Giovanni a liberal anti-Fascist who was a minister in the last democratically elected Italian government before Mussolini.  It was as a reaction to his father’s death in 1926, following injuries inflicted on him by Fascist thugs who tracked him down in France on Mussolini’s orders, that Amendola secretly joined the PCI and began to work for the downfall of the dictator.  He was largely based in France and Germany but from time to time returned to Italy undercover in order to meet other left-wing figures. It was on one visit in 1932 that he was arrested in Milan.  Read more…

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20 November

Giorgio de Chirico – artist

Founder of the scuola metafisica movement

The artist Giorgio de Chirico, who founded the scuola metafisica (metaphysical school) of Italian art that was a profound influence on the country’s Surrealist movement in the early 20th century, died on this day in 1978 in Rome.  Although De Chirico, who was 90 when he passed away, was active for almost 70 years, it is for the paintings of the first decade of his career, between about 1909 and 1919, that he is best remembered.  It was during this period, his metaphysical phase, that he sought to use his art to express what might be called philosophical musings on the nature of reality, taking familiar scenes, such as town squares, and creating images that might appear in a dream, in which pieces of classical architecture would perhaps be juxtaposed with everyday objects in exaggerated form, the scene moodily atmospheric, with areas of dark shadow and bright light, and maybe a solitary figure.  These works were much admired and enormously influential.  During military service in the First World War he met Carlo Carrà, who would become a leading light in the Futurist movement, and together they formed the pittura metafisica (metaphysical painting) movement.  Read more…

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Emilio Pucci – fashion designer

The heroic, sporting, creative genius behind the Pucci label

Don Emilio Pucci, Marchese di Barsento, who became a top fashion designer and politician, was born on this day in 1914 in Florence.  Pucci was born into one of the oldest families in Florence and lived and worked in the Pucci Palace in Florence for most of his life. His fashion creations were worn by such famous women as Marilyn Monroe, Sophia Loren and Jackie Kennedy.  A keen sportsman who swam, skied, fenced, played tennis and raced cars, Pucci was part of the Italian team at the 1932 Winter Olympics in New York, although he did not compete.  He studied at the University of Milan, the University of Georgia, and Reed College in Oregon, where he designed the clothes for the college skiing team.  Pucci was awarded an MA in social science from Reed, where he was known to be a staunch defender of the Fascist regime in Italy. He was also awarded a doctorate in political science from the University of Florence.  It was his success as a fashion designer that would in time make his name but before that came some wartime experiences that were extraordinary to say the least.  In 1938 Pucci joined the Italian air force and served as a torpedo bomber, rising to the rank of captain and being decorated for valour.  Read more…

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Diocletian - Roman emperor

Restored stability but launched cruel purge

A Roman cavalry commander who went under the name of Diocles was proclaimed Emperor on this day in 284.  He was given the full name Gaius Aurelius Valerius Diocletianus Augustus according to official inscriptions. He ruled as Diocletian.  He was sole emperor, albeit initially with a disputed claim to power, until 286, joint-emperor until 293, and co-emperor in a tetrarchy until 305.  Born at Salona, a coastal town in Dalmatia (now Solin in Croatia) into a family of humble status in 244, Diocletian rose to power through his military background.  After climbing through the ranks, he became cavalry commander to the Emperor Carus. After the death of Carus in 283, while on a campaign in Persia, power passed to his two sons, Numerian and Carinus.  When Numerian was allegedly murdered by his Praetorian Prefect, Arrius Aper, in 284, Diocletian was proclaimed as emperor by Numerian’s troops. He took it upon himself to avenge the death of Numerian by killing Aper with his own hands.  At the start, however, Diocletian’s power was restricted to the areas controlled by his army, thought to be Asia Minor and Syria. The remainder of the empire was loyal to Carinus.  Read more…

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Giampiero Combi - goalkeeper

Juventus stalwart who captained Italy’s 1934 World Cup winners

The footballer Giampiero Combi, who is considered to be one of the best Italian goalkeepers of all time, was born on November 20, 1902 in Turin.  Combi, who spent his entire career with his home-town club Juventus, was Italy’s captain at the 1934 World Cup, which Italy hosted and won, the team coached by Vittorio Pozzo and inspired by the revered Inter Milan striker Giuseppe Meazza defeating Czechoslovakia after extra time in the final of the 16-team tournament.  The achievement in front of excited Italian supporters in Rome capped a marvellous career for Combi, although it came about only by chance.  He had announced that he would retire at the end of the 1933-34 domestic season at the age of 31, having made 40 appearances for the azzurri. But Pozzo had persuaded him to be part of his squad to provide experienced cover for the emerging young Inter star Carlo Ceresoli.  In the event, Ceresoli suffered a broken arm in training a few weeks before the tournament and Combi found himself as the number one. He performed immaculately throughout, conceding only three goals in 510 minutes of football.  Read more…

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Queen Margherita of Savoy

Princess and fashion icon who became Queen of Italy

Margherita Maria Teresa Giovanna of Savoy was born on this day in 1851 in Turin.  The little girl, who was to later become the Queen consort of Italy, was the daughter of Prince Ferdinand Duke of Genoa and Princess Elisabeth of Saxony. She was educated to a high standard and renowned as a charming person with a lively curiosity to learn. A tall, stately blonde, she was not considered a beauty but nonetheless had many admirers.  Having first been suggested to marry Prince Charles of Romania, she instead married her first cousin Umberto, Prince of Piedmont, in April 1868 when she was just 16. The following year she gave birth to Victor Emmanuel, Prince of Naples, who later became King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy. He was to be their only child.  Margherita was crowned Queen of Italy in Naples when Umberto succeeded his father to the throne in January 1878 and she was warmly welcomed by the Neapolitan people.  It was not a particularly good marriage for Margherita. Umberto maintained an affair with a long-term lover, Eugenia Attendolo Bolognini. Read more…

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