1 April

Alberto Zaccheroni - football coach

First Italian coach to lead a foreign nation to success

The football coach Alberto Zaccheroni, who won the Serie A title with AC Milan and steered the Japan national team to success in the Asia Cup, was born on this day in 1953 in Meldola, a town in Emilia-Romagna.  In a long coaching career, Zaccheroni has taken charge of 13 teams in Italy, a club side in China and two international teams, Japan and the United Arab Emirates.  In common with many coaches in Italy, Zaccheroni began at semi-professional level and worked his way up through the professional leagues.  Before winning the Scudetto with Milan in 1999, he had twice won titles at Serie D (fourth tier) level and twice in Serie C.  Zaccheroni played as a fullback, with the youth team at Bologna and the Serie D team Cesenatico in Emilia-Romagna, but his career was hampered by a lung disease he contracted at the age of 17, which meant he could not train or play for two years.  He quit playing in his mid-20s and began to coach Cesenatico’s youth teams.  His coaching talents began to attract attention when, in two consecutive seasons, he was asked to take over on the bench for Cesenatico’s first team following the sacking of the head coach and on each occasion saved them from relegation.  Read more…

______________________________________

Giancarlo Antognoni - footballer

Midfield star recovered from horrific injury to win World Cup

The footballer Giancarlo Antognoni, who won 73 international caps for his country and was a member of the Italy team that won the 1982 World Cup in Spain, was born on this day in 1954 in Marsciano, a mediæval town in Umbria, some 25km (16 miles) south of the regional capital, Perugia.  Antognoni, who spent most of his club career with Fiorentina and still works for the club today, was regarded as one of the most talented midfield players of his generation, but had the misfortune to miss Italy’s triumph against West Germany in the 1982 final, having suffered a broken foot in the semi-final against Poland.  Nonetheless, he made a major contribution to the performances that carried the azzurri through to the final, including the victories over holders Argentina and tournament favourites Brazil in the second phase. As the team's main playmaker, he set up numerous goalscoring opportunities for his teammates. Throughout the 1982 tournament, only Brazil's Zico and West Germany's Pierre Littbarski made more passes that directly led to goals.  Antognoni himself had a goal incorrectly ruled out for offside against Brazil, although Italy still came out on top thanks to Paolo Rossi’s stunning hat-trick in a famous 3–2 victory.  Read more…

____________________________________

Arrigo Sacchi -- football coach

AC Milan manager's tactics revolutionised football in Italy

Arrigo Sacchi, the football coach who led AC Milan to back-to-back European Cups and steered Italy to a World Cup final, was born on this day in 1946 in Fusignano, a small town not far from Ravenna in Emilia-Romagna.  Unusually among top coaches, Sacchi never played football as a professional.  Aware of his limited ability, he quickly decided he would concentrate instead on becoming a manager, taking charge of a local amateur team, Baracca Lugo, when he was just 26.  Literally, he worked his way up from the bottom, making a living as a shoe salesman while training his players in his spare time.  Yet step by step he ascended to the very top of the game, landing jobs on the coaching staffs at Cesena, Rimini and Fiorentina before Parma, then in the third tier of the Italian football pyramid, made him head coach in 1985.  He won promotion to Serie B in his first season and finished only three points short of promotion to Serie A in his second year, when Parma also pulled off one of the biggest upsets of the season, knocking AC Milan out of the Coppa Italia, which is Italy's equivalent of England's FA Cup.  Read more…

_____________________________________

April Fools' Day - Italian style

What lies behind the tradition of Pesce d'Aprile?

Playing practical jokes on April 1 is a tradition in Italy in the same way as many other countries, although in Italy the day is called Pesce d’Aprile – April’s Fish – rather than April Fools’ Day.  It is said to have become popular in Italy between 1860 and 1880, especially in Genoa, where families in the wealthier social circles embraced the idea, already popular in France, of marking the day by playing tricks on one another.  The most simple trick involves sticking a cut-out picture of a fish on the back of an unsuspecting ‘victim’ and watching how long it takes for him or her to discover he had been pranked but over the years there have been many much more elaborate tricks played.  Often these have involved spoof announcements or false stories in the newspapers or on TV or radio shows, aimed at embarrassing large numbers of gullible readers, viewers or listeners.  One of the first such large-scale hoaxes took place in 1878, when the newspaper Gazzetta d’Italia announced the cremation of an Indian Maharaja was to take place in Florence, attracting a large crowd to Parco delle Cascine where a pyre had been built in preparation.  Read more…

Home

31 March

Dante Giacosa - auto engineer

Designer known as ‘the father of the Cinquecento'

The automobile engineer Dante Giacosa, who worked for the Italian car maker Fiat for almost half a century and designed the iconic Fiat 500 - the Cinquecento - in all its incarnations as well as numerous other classic models, died on this day in 1996 at the age of 91.  Giacosa was the lead design engineer for Fiat from 1946 to 1970. As such, he was head of all Fiat car projects during that time and the direction of the company’s output was effectively entirely down to him.  In addition to his success with the Cinquecento, Giacosa’s Fiat 128, launched in 1969, became the template adopted by virtually every other manufacturer in the world for front-wheel drive cars.  His Fiat 124, meanwhile, was exported to the Soviet Union and repackaged as the Zhiguli, known in the West as the Lada, which introduced Soviet society of the 1970s to the then-bourgeois concept of private car ownership.  Born in Rome, where his father was undertaking military service, Giacosa's family roots were in Neive in southern Piedmont. He studied engineering at the Polytechnic University of Turin.  After completing his compulsory military service he joined Fiat in 1928.  Read more…

______________________________________

Maurizio De Giovanni – crime writer

Detective novelist has opened up his native Naples to crime fiction fans

Bestselling author Maurizio De Giovanni was born on this day in 1958 in Naples in southern Italy.  His novels have been translated into English, Spanish, Catalan, French and German and have sold well over a million copies throughout Europe.  De Giovanni is best known for his two fictional detectives, Commissario Ricciardi, who works as a detective in 1930s Naples, and Ispettore Lojacono, who has been transferred to present day Naples from his home town of Agrigento in Sicily, after being accused of associating with the Mafia.  He has also written stories featuring a very different character, a social worker called Mina Settembre, who is based at a clinic in Naples specialising in providing psychological support.  In 2005, De Giovanni won a writing competition for unpublished authors with a short story, I vivi e i morti - The Living and the Dead -  which was set in the 1930s and featured the character Commissario Ricciardi.  He was working in a bank at the time, a job for which by his own admission he had no particular inclination but which paid the bills. Always known as a bookworm, he wrote stories that he would show his colleagues. Read more…

____________________________________

Bianca Maria Visconti – Duchess of Milan

Ruler fought alongside her troops to defend her territory

Bianca Maria Visconti, the daughter of Filippo Maria Visconti, Duke of Milan, was born on this day in 1425 near Settimo Pavese in Lombardy.  A strong character, her surviving letters showed she was able to run Milan efficiently after becoming Duchess and even supposedly donned a suit of armour and rode with her troops into battle, earning herself the nickname, Warrior Woman.  Bianca Maria was the illegitimate daughter of the Duke of Milan, and was sent to live with her mother in comfortable conditions in a castle where she received a good education.  At the age of six she was betrothed for political reasons to the condottiero, Francesco I Sforza, who was 24 years older than her.  Despite the political situation changing many times over the years, Bianca Maria and Francesco Sforza did get married in 1441 when she was 16. The wedding took place in Cremona, which was listed as part of her dowry. The celebrations lasted several days and included a banquet, tournaments, a palio and a huge cake made in the shape of the city’s Torrazzo, the bell tower.  Bianca Maria quickly proved her skills in administration and diplomacy.  Read more…

___________________________________

Franco Bonvicini – comic book artist

Comic artist became famous for satirising the Nazis

Franco Bonvicini, who signed his comic strips Bonvi, was born on this day in 1941 in either Parma or Modena in Emilia-Romagna.  The correct birthplace is unknown. According to the artist, his mother registered him in both places to obtain double the usual amount of food stamps for rations.  After a brief spell working in advertising, Bonvi made his debut in the comic strip world for the Rome newspaper Paese Sera with his creation Sturmtruppen in 1968.  This series satirising the German army was a big hit and was published in various periodicals over the years. It was also translated for publication in other countries.  Although left-wing and a pacifist, Bonvi was fascinated by war and built up immense knowledge about Nazi Germany’s uniforms, weapons and equipment, which he depicted faithfully in his illustrations. The cartoons satirised military life and the Nazis themselves, providing him with an endless source of comic and surreal situations.  Bonvi also created the character Nick Carter, a comic detective, who later featured in a play, two films and a number of television cartoons.  Read more…

____________________________________

Pope Benedict XIV

Bologna cardinal seen as great intellectual leader

Prospero Lorenzo Lambertini, who would in his later years become Pope Benedict XIV, was born on this day in 1675 in Bologna.  Lambertini was a man of considerable intellect, considered one of the most erudite men of his time and arguably the greatest scholar of all the popes.  He promoted scientific learning, the Baroque arts, the reinvigoration of the philosophy of Saint Thomas Aquinas and the study of the human form.  He was Bishop of Ancona at the age of 52, Archbishop of Bologna at 56 and Pope at 65 but at no time did he consider his elevation to these posts an honour upon which to congratulate himself.  He saw them as the opportunity to do good and tackled each job with zeal and energy. A man of cheerful character, he set out never to allow anyone to leave his company dissatisfied or angry, without feeling strengthened by his wisdom or advice.  He attracted some criticism for his willingness to make concessions or compromises in his negotiations with governments and rulers, yet his pursuit of peaceful accommodation was always paramount and historians have noted that few conflicts in which he sought to arbitrate remained unresolved.  Read more…

Home

30 March

NEW - Faustina Bordoni - mezzo-soprano

Brilliant career overshadowed by infamous on-stage fight

Faustina Bordoni, a feted mezzo-soprano ranked as one of the finest opera singers of the 18th century, was born on this day in 1697 in Venice.  Such was her popularity that when she joined her husband, the German composer Johann Adolf Hasse, in the employment of the Court of Saxony, where Hasse was maestro di cappella, her salary was double his.  Yet for all her acting talent and vocal brilliance, Bordoni is more often remembered as one half of the so-called ‘rival queens’ engaged by George Frideric Handel to join the company of the booming Royal Academy of Music in London in the 1720s, where she and the Italian soprano Francesca Cuzzoni allegedly came to blows on stage.  Born into a respected Venetian family, Bordoni’s musical talent was nurtured by the composers Alessandro and Benedetto Marcello and by her singing teacher, Michelangelo Gasparini.  She made her debut in Venice at the age of 19 in Carlo Francesco Pollarolo's Ariodante. The quality of her voice excited the critics, while audiences were instantly charmed by her youthful beauty and stage presence.  Read more…

_____________________________________

Fortunato Depero - artist

Futurist who designed iconic Campari bottle

The Futurist painter, sculptor and graphic artist Fortunato Depero, who left a famous mark on Italian culture by designing the conical bottle in which Campari Soda is still sold today, was born on this day in 1892 in the Trentino region.  Depero had a wide breadth of artistic talent, which encompassed painting, sculpture, architecture and graphic design. He designed magazine covers for the New Yorker, Vogue and Vanity Fair among others, created stage sets and costumes for the theatre, made sculptures and paintings and some consider his masterpiece to be the trade fair pavilion he designed for the 1927 Monza Biennale Internazionale delle Arti Decorative, which had giant block letters for walls.  Yet it is the distinctive Campari bottle that has endured longest of all his creations, which went into production in 1932 as the manufacturers of the famous aperitif broke new ground by deciding to sell a ready-made drink of Campari blended with soda water.  It was the first pre-mixed drink anyone had sold commercially and Depero, who was already working with the Milan-based company on a series of advertising posters and stylish black-and-white newspaper ads, was tasked with creating a unique miniature bottle in which the new product would be packaged..  Read more…

______________________________________

Rimini Proclamation

Opening statement of the Risorgimento came from a Frenchman

The first political proclamation calling for all Italians to unite into a single people and drive out foreigners was issued on this day in 1815 in Rimini.  But the stirring words: ‘Italians! The hour has come to engage in your highest destiny…’ came from a Frenchman, Gioacchino (Joachim) Murat, who was at the time occupying the throne of Naples, which he had been given by his brother-in-law, Napoleon.  Murat had just declared war on Austria and used the Proclamation to call on Italians to revolt against the Austrians occupying Italy. He was trying to show himself as a backer of Italian independence in an attempt to find allies in his desperate battle to hang on to his own throne.  Although Murat was acting out of self-interest at the time, the Proclamation is often seen as the opening statement of the Risorgimento, the movement that helped to arouse the national consciousness of the Italian people. It led to a series of political events that freed the Italian states from foreign domination and unified them politically.  Murat’s Proclamation impressed the Milanese writer Alessandro Manzoni, who wrote a poem about it later that year, Il proclama di Rimini.  Read more…

______________________________________

Ignazio Gardella – architect

Modernist who created Venetian classic

The engineer and architect Ignazio Gardella, considered one of the great talents of modern urban design in Italy, was born on this day in 1905 in Milan.  He represented the fourth generation in a family of architects and his destiny was determined at an early age. He graduated in civil engineering in Milan in 1931 and architecture in Venice in 1949.  Gardella designed numerous buildings during an active career that spanned almost six decades, including the Antituberculosis Dispensary in Alessandria, which is considered one of the purest examples of Italian Rationalism, and the Casa alle Zattere on the Giudecca Canal in Venice, in which he blended modernism with classical style in a way that has been heralded as genius.  During his university years, he made friends with many young architects from the Milan area and together they created the Modern Italian Movement.  He worked with his father, Arnaldo, on a number of projects while still studying.  On graduating, he set up an office in Milan, although he spent a good part of his early career travelling, sometimes with a commission but at other times to study.  Read more…

____________________________________

The Sicilian Vespers

How the French lost control of the island they were ruling

As the citizens of Palermo walked to vespers - evening prayers - in the church of Santo Spirito on this day in 1282, a French soldier grossly insulted a pretty young Sicilian woman.  The girl’s enraged fiancé immediately drew his dagger and stabbed the soldier through the heart.  The violence was contagious and the local people exploded in fury against the French occupying forces. More than 200 French soldiers were killed at the outset and the violence spread to other parts of Sicily the next day resulting in a full-scale rebellion against French rule. This bloody event, which led to Charles of Anjou losing control of Sicily, became known in history as the Sicilian Vespers.  King Charles was detested for his cold-blooded cruelty and his officials had made the lives of the ordinary Sicilians miserable.  After he was overthrown, Sicily enjoyed almost a century of independence.  There have been different versions given of the events that led to the rebellion against the French and it is not known exactly how the uprising started.  But to many Italians the story of the Sicilian Vespers has always been inspirational.  Read more…

Home

Faustina Bordoni - mezzo-soprano

Brilliant career overshadowed by infamous on-stage fight

A portrait of Faustina Bordoni by the
Venetian painter Rosalba Carriera

Faustina Bordoni, a feted mezzo-soprano ranked as one of the finest opera singers of the 18th century, was born on this day in 1697 in Venice.

Such was her popularity that when she joined her husband, the German composer Johann Adolf Hasse, in the employment of the Court of Saxony, where Hasse was maestro di cappella, her salary was double his.

Yet for all her acting talent and vocal brilliance, Bordoni is more often remembered as one half of the so-called ‘rival queens’ engaged by George Frideric Handel to join the company of the booming Royal Academy of Music in London in the 1720s, where she and the Italian soprano Francesca Cuzzoni allegedly came to blows on stage.

Born into a respected Venetian family, Bordoni’s musical talent was nurtured by the composers Alessandro and Benedetto Marcello and by her singing teacher, Michelangelo Gasparini. 

She made her debut in Venice at the age of 19 in Carlo Francesco Pollarolo's Ariodante. The quality of her voice excited the critics, while audiences were instantly charmed by her youthful beauty and stage presence.

Fame came quickly. As well as continuing to perform in her home city, where she performed for composers such as Tomaso Albinoni and Giuseppe Maria Orlandini, Bordoni sang in venues across Italy and in both Vienna and Munich. Her fans began to refer to her simply as ‘Faustina’.

Bordoni's singing rival,
Francesca Cuzzoni

Her rivalry with Cuzzoni, a soprano from Parma of approximately the same age, probably began in Venice, although it was not until Bordoni arrived in London in 1726 that it came to a head in dramatic fashion.

Cuzzoni had been in London since 1722, establishing herself as one of the stars of the Royal Academy alongside the celebrated castrato, Senesino. Already known for a fiery temper, she had once allegedly refused to perform a role when she discovered Handel had initially written it for someone else.

When Handel, under pressure from the theatre management to engage more singers so they could meet a growing demand for performances as opera’s popularity soared, announced that Bordoni would be joining them in London, Cuzzoni was said to be furious.

After Bordoni’s debut alongside Cuzzoni in Handel’s Alessandro, London opera fans began to divide into factions who favoured Faustina and others who preferred Cuzzoni.

Watching opera in the 1700s was very different from today. Although theatres had wealthy patrons, they also provided entertainment for the masses and audiences did not necessarily conduct themselves with decorum, even to the extent of booing a singer considered a rival to their favourite. 

Johann Adolf Hesse, to whom
Bordoni was married in 1730

The Cuzzoni-Bordoni rivalry came to a head when they were cast to appear alongside one another in a performance of Giovanni Bononcini’s opera Astianatte at the King's Theatre, Haymarket, in June 1727.

Despite the presence of Caroline, Princess of Wales in the audience, rival factions took turns to jeer and catcall whenever one or the other began to sing and when the two singers appeared on the stage together a fight broke out in the stalls.

Although accounts in the newspapers were almost certainly exaggerated for dramatic effect, Cuzzoni was reported to have turned on Bordoni, sparking an exchange of insults. Soon they were said to have begun pulling at each other’s hair and tearing pieces from their costumes. After they were separated, the performance was abandoned.

Bordoni left England the following year after the Royal Academy was forced into closure with unsustainable debts, driven partly by the high salaries commanded by the singers.  She married Hasse in 1730 and they remained with the Saxon Court in Dresden for 30 years, enjoying the status of a celebrity couple. Bordoni sang in 15 operas written by her husband, as well as continuing to travel regularly to the major opera houses of Italy.

She and Hasse left Dresden for Vienna in 1763 and ultimately to Venice in 1773. Bordoni is said to have continued to sing into her 70s before settling into a comfortable retirement. She died in Venice in 1781 at the age of 84.

Teatro La Fenice opened
its doors in 1792

Travel tip:

Opera was so popular in Venice in the 18th century that the city boasted no fewer than seven opera houses. The biggest of these, the Teatro San Benedetto in San Marco, was destroyed in a fire in 1771. Rebuilt, it became the object of a legal dispute involving the Venier family, who owned part of the land on which the theatre was built. The Venier family won the case and the company running the theatre had to sell up. On a different site, they built another opera house and called in Teatro La Fenice - the Phoenix Theatre - to symbolise its rise from the flames. Work was completed in April 1792 and the new opera house inaugurated on 16 May with a performance of I giochi di Agrigento by Giovanni Paisiello, to a libretto by Alessandro Pepoli.

Travel tip:

Faustina Bordoni and her husband Johann Adolf Hasse are buried within the Church of San Marcuola in the Cannaregio district of Venice, overlooking the Grand Canal, opposite the Fontego dei Turchi, between Santa Lucia railway station and the Rialto.  The church is actually dedicated to Saints Ermagora and Fortunato. The name San Marcuola is thought to be rooted in Venetian dialect. The church is thought to have been built originally in the 12th century. It was restructured in the 18th century by Giorgio Massari in accordance with plans drawn up by Antonio Gaspari, but the façade remained unfinished.  The interior is notable for a Last Supper by Jacopo Tintoretto, thought to be one of the Venetian painter’s earliest works.  

Also on this day:

1282: Sicily rises up against the French

1815: The Proclamation that began the Risorgimento movement

1892: The birth of Futurist painter and graphic artist Fortunato Depero

1905: The birth of urban engineer and architect Ignazio Gardella

Home