17 August

Cesare Borgia – condottiero

Renaissance prince turned his back on the Church

Cesare Borgia, the son of Pope Alexander VI, became the first person in history to resign as a Cardinal on this day in 1498 in Rome.  Cesare was originally intended for the Church and had been made a Cardinal at the age of 18 after his father’s election to the Papacy. After the assassination of his brother, Giovanni, who was captain general of the Pope’s military forces, Cesare made an abrupt career change and was put in charge of the Papal States.  His fight to gain power was later the inspiration for Machiavelli’s book The Prince.  Cesare was made Duke of Valentinois by King Louis XII of France and after Louis invaded Italy in 1499, Cesare accompanied him when he entered Milan. He reinforced his alliance with France by marrying Charlotte d’Albret, the sister of John III of Navarre.  Pope Alexander encouraged Cesare to carve out a state of his own in northern Italy and deposed all his vicars in the Romagna and Marche regions.  Cesare was made condottiero - military leader - in command of the papal army and sent to capture Imola and Forlí.  He returned to Rome in triumph and received the title Papal Gonfalonier from his father.  Read more...

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The Milan-Monza railway

First line in northern Italy sparked industrial growth 

The first railway line laid in northern Italy was opened on this day in 1840. The line, authorised by Ferdinand I of Austria, within whose empire the Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia fell at the time, connected the city of Milan with the smaller city of Monza, covering a distance of 12.8km (eight miles).  It was the second railway line to be built on the Italian peninsula, following on from the shorter Naples-Portici line, which had been opened in October of the previous year.  Italy was a little behind in developing railways. The first steam-powered railway engine had completed its maiden journey some 56 years earlier, in England.   But once Milan-Monza was operational, quickly followed by the first section of what would become a Milan-Venice line, the rest of Italy awoke to their potential.  By the end of the 1840s, there were nine or 10 routes, mainly in the north; by unification in 1861, the network had expanded to more than 2,000km (1,240 miles) and by the early 1870s, there were some 7,000km (4,340 miles) of track, enabling travel from the outposts of Susa in the northwest, close to the border with France, and Udine in the northeast, all the way down to Maglie, south of Lecce, and Cariati, east of Cosenza, in the south.  Read more…

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Franco Sensi - businessman

Oil tycoon who rescued AS Roma football club

The businessman Francesco ‘Franco’ Sensi, best known as the businessman who transformed a near-bankrupt AS Roma into a successful football club, died on this day in 2008 in the Gemelli General Hospital in Rome.  He was 88 and had been in ill health for a number of years. He had been the longest-serving president of the Roma club, remaining at the helm for 15 years, and it is generally accepted that the success the team enjoyed during his tenure - a Serie A title, two Coppa Italia triumphs and two in the Supercoppa Italiana - would not have happened but for his astute management.  His death was mourned by tens of thousands of Roma fans who filed past his coffin in the days before the funeral at the Basilica of San Lorenzo al Verano, where a crowd put at around 30,000 turned out to witness the funeral procession. The then-Roma coach Luciano Spalletti and captain Francesco Totti were among the pallbearers.  Sensi, whose father, Silvio, had helped bring about the formation of AS Roma in 1927 in a merger of three other city teams, grew up supporting the club and followed his father into a business career.  Read more…

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Pope Benedict XIV

Erudite, gentle, honest man was chosen as a compromise

Prospero Lorenzo Lambertini began his reign as Pope Benedict XIV on this day in 1740 in Rome.  Considered one of the greatest ever Christian scholars, he promoted scientific learning, the baroque arts and the study of the human form.  Benedict XIV also revived interest in the philosophies of Thomas Aquinas, reduced taxation in the Papal States, encouraged agriculture and supported free trade.  As a scholar interested in ancient literature, and who published many ecclesiastical books and documents himself, he laid the groundwork for the present-day Vatican Museum.  Lambertini was born into a noble family in Bologna in 1675. At the age of 13 he started attending the Collegium Clementinum in Rome, where he studied rhetoric, Latin, philosophy and theology. Thomas Aquinas became his favourite author and saint. At the age of 19 he received a doctorate in both ecclesiastical and civil law.  Lambertini was consecrated a bishop in Rome in 1724, was made Bishop of Ancona in 1727 and Cardinal-Priest of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme in 1728.  Following the death of Pope Clement XII, Lambertini was elected pope on the evening of August 17, 1740.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: The Borgias: Power and Fortune, by Paul Strathern

The Borgias have become a byword for evil. Corruption, incest, ruthlessness, avarice and vicious cruelty - all have been associated with their name. But the story of this remarkable family is far more than a tale of sensational depravities - it also marks the golden age of the Italian Renaissance and a decisive turning point in European history.  From the family's Spanish roots and the papacy of Rodrigo Borgia, to the lives of his infamous offspring, Lucrezia and Cesare - the hero who dazzled Machiavelli, but also the man who befriended Leonardo da Vinci - Paul Strathern tells the captivating story of this great dynasty and the world in which they flourished. The Borgias: Power and Fortune is a “history of ruthlessness, intrigue and men broken on Fortune's Wheel - a wickedly entertaining read” -  The Times.

Paul Strathern was born in London, and studied philosophy at Trinity College, Dublin. One of his five novels, A Season in Abyssinia, won a Somerset Maugham Award in 1972. His other books about Italian history include The Medici: Power, Money and Ambition in the Italian Renaissance, The Florentines: From Dante to Galileo, Death in Florence: The Medici, Savonarola, and the Battle for the Soul of a Renaissance City, and The Spirit of Venice: From Marco Polo to Casanova.

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(To the best of our knowledge, all entries were factually accurate at the time of writing. In the case of individuals still living, some of the information may need updating.)

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16 August

Tonino Delli Colli – cinematographer

Craftsman who shot Life is Beautiful and Italy's first colour film

Antonio (Tonino) Delli Colli, the cinematographer who shot the first Italian film in colour, died on this day in 2005 in Rome.  The last film he made was Roberto Benigni’s Life is Beautiful, shot on location in Arezzo in Tuscany, for which he won his fourth David di Donatello Award for Best Cinematography.  Delli Colli was born in Rome and started work at the city’s Cinecittà studio in 1938, shortly after it opened, when he was just 16.  By the mid 1940s he was working as a cinematographer, or director of photography, who is the person in charge of the camera and light crews working on a film. He was responsible for making artistic and technical decisions related to the image and selected the camera, film stock, lenses and filters. Directors often conveyed to him what was wanted from a scene visually and then allowed him complete latitude to achieve that effect.  Delli Colli was credited as director of photography for the first time in 1943 on Finalmente Si (Finally Yes), directed by László Kish.  In 1952 Delli Colli shot the first Italian film to be made in colour, Totò a colori. He had been reluctant to do it but was given no choice by his bosses.  Read more…

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Umberto Baldini – art restorer

Saved hundreds of artworks damaged by Arno floods

Umberto Baldini, the art historian who helped save hundreds of paintings, sculptures and manuscripts feared to have been damaged beyond repair in the catastrophic flooding in Florence in 1966, died on this day in 2006.  Baldini was working as director of the Gabinetto di Restauro, an office of the municipal authority in Florence charged with supervising restoration projects, when the River Arno broke its banks in the early hours of November 4, 1966.  With the ground already saturated, the combination of two days of torrential rain and storm force winds was too much and dams built to create reservoirs in the upper reaches of the Arno valley were threatened with collapse.  Consequently thousands of cubic metres of water had to be released, gathering pace as it raced downstream and eventually swept into the city at speeds of up to 40mph.  More than 100 people were killed and up to 20,000 in the valley left homeless. At its peak the depth of water in the Santa Croce area of Florence rose to 6.7 metres (22 feet).  Baldini was director of the conservation studios at the Uffizi, the principal art museum in Florence.  Read more... 

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Vincenzo Coronelli – globe maker

Friar whose globes of the world were in big demand

Vincenzo Coronelli, a Franciscan friar who was also a celebrated cartographer and globe maker, was born on this day in 1650 in Venice.  He became famous for making finely-crafted globes of the world for the Duke of Parma and Louis XIV of France.  This started a demand for globes from other aristocratic clients to adorn their libraries and some of Coronelli’s creations are still in existence today in private collections.  Coronelli was the fifth child of a Venetian tailor and was accepted as a novice by the Franciscans when he was 15. He was later sent to a college in Rome where he studied theology and astronomy.  He began working as a geographer and was commissioned to produce a set of globes for Ranuccio II Farnese, Duke of Parma. Each finely crafted globe was five feet in diameter.  After one of Louis XIV’s advisers saw the globes, Coronelli was invited to Paris to make a pair of globes for the French King.  The large globes displayed the latest information obtained by French explorers in North America. They are now in the François-Mitterand national library in Paris.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Dark Water: Art, Disaster, and Redemption in Florence, by Robert Clark

Birthplace of Michelangelo and home to untold masterpieces, Florence is a city for art lovers. But on November 4, 1966, the rising waters of the Arno threatened to erase over seven centuries of history and human achievement. In Dark Water, Robert Clark explores the Italian city's most catastrophic flood and its aftermath through the voices of its witnesses. Two American artists wade through the devastated beauty; a photographer stows away on an army helicopter to witness the tragedy first-hand; a British "mud angel" spends a month scraping mold from the world's masterpieces; and, through it all, an author asks why art matters so very much to us, even in the face of overwhelming disaster.

Robert Clark is an American novelist and writer of nonfiction. He has received the Edgar, James Beard and Julia Child awards, the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award, and the Washington State Book Award. A native of St. Paul, Minnesota, he lives in New York City.

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(To the best of our knowledge, all entries were factually accurate at the time of writing. In the case of individuals still living, some of the information may need updating.)

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15 August

NEW - Ferragosto

A chance to enjoy quieter cities while Italians take a holiday

Italy, San Marino and the Italian speaking region of Switzerland all celebrate Ferragosto on this day every year with a public holiday.  This day of celebration originated during Roman times, when Feriae Augusti, the festival of the Roman Emperor Augustus, took place on 1 August. It was a day of rest for working people to signal the culmination of weeks of hard work by labourers on the land.  The month of August itself is named after Augustus. Its original name was sextilis, as it was the sixth month in the Roman calendar. Just as Julius Caesar had previously renamed quintilis - the fifth month - Iulius after himself, it was only natural for Augustus, as Julius Caesar’s chosen heir, to follow suit.  Over the centuries, it became traditional for workers to wish their employers ‘Buon Ferragosto, and to receive a bonus of extra money from their bosses in return. During the Renaissance, this tradition actually became law throughout the Papal States.  The Catholic Church moved the date for Ferragosto to 15 August to coincide with the celebrations for the Feast of the Assumption, a day of worship to mark the ascendance of the Virgin Mary into Heaven.  Read more…

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Gianfranco Ferré - fashion designer

Sought to create clothes for real women 

Gianfranco Ferré, who became one of the biggest names in Italian fashion during the 1980s and 1990s, was born on this day in 1944 in Legnano, a town in Lombardy north-west of Milan, between the city and Lake Maggiore, where in adult life he made his home.  Ferré was regarded as groundbreaking in fashion design in the same way as Chanel and Yves Saint Laurent in that his clothes were created with real people rather than catwalk models in mind, yet without compromise in terms of aesthetic appeal.  At the peak of his popularity, his clients included Sharon Stone, Elizabeth Taylor, the Queen of Jordan, Paloma Picasso, Sophia Loren and the late Diana, Princess of Wales.  Ferré first trained to be an architect, placing emphasis on the structure of his garments in which strong seams were often a prominent feature. He was once dubbed the Frank Lloyd Wright of fashion, which was taken to be a reference to the powerful horizontals in his designs.  His staff addressed him as "the architect". He was also well known for inevitably including variations of white dress shirts in his collections, adorned with theatrical cuffs or multiple collars.   Read more…

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Carlo Cipolla - economic historian

Professor famous for treatise on ‘stupidity’

Carlo Maria Cipolla, an economic historian who for many years was a professor at the University of California, Berkeley and taught at several Italian universities, was born on this day in 1922 in Pavia.  He was one of the leading economic historians of the 20th century and wrote more than 20 academic books on economic and social history but also on such diverse subjects as clocks, guns and faith, reason and the plague in 17th century Italy.  Yet it was for his humorous treatise, The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity, that he became famous. The book, written very much tongue in cheek, became a bestseller in Italy after it was published in 1976.  In it, Cipolla produced a graph that divided the human species into four types, each sharing one characteristic of another type.  He proposed that there are (a) bandits, whose actions bring benefits for themselves but losses for others; (b) intelligent people, whose actions bring benefits for themselves and for others; (c) naive or helpless people, whose actions bring benefits for others but who tend to be exploited and therefore incur losses for themselves; and (d) stupid people, whose actions result not only in losses for themselves but for others too.  Read more…

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Francesco Zuccarelli - landscape painter

Tuscan-born artist appealed to English tastes

Francesco Zuccarelli, who was considered to be the most important landscape painter to emerge from Venice in the 18th century, was born on this day in 1702.  Zuccarelli’s picturesque Arcadian landscapes were especially appealing to English buyers, and he was more famous in England even than his contemporary, Canaletto.  His fame in England prompted Zuccarelli to spend two periods of his life there. He settled in London for the first time at the end of 1752 and remained for 10 years, enjoying great success.  After returning to Italy after being elected to the Venetian Academy, he went back to England from 1765 to 1771, during which time he was a founding member of the Royal Academy and became one of George III’s favourite painters.  Born in Pitigliano, a mediaeval town perched on top of a tufa ridge in southern Tuscany, Zuccarelli received his early training in Florence, where he engraved the frescoes by Andrea del Sarto in SS Annunziata.  Zuccarelli’s father Bartolomeo owned several local vineyards. With considerable income at his disposal, he sent Francesco to Rome at the age of 11 or 12 to begin an apprenticeship.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Italian Festival Food: Recipes and Traditions from Italy′s Regional Country Food Fairs, by Anne Bianchi

Italy is a nation that likes nothing as much as an extravagant party with wonderful food. Throughout its twenty regions, people celebrate with feste patronale, religious festivals, as well as sagre, which are secular events paying tribute to specific foods. The region of Gubbio boasts of a festival dedicated to the enjoyment of truffles. The festival in Piediluco, which sits on a lake of the same name in Lazio, takes the local bounty of fish to new culinary heights. There are many other festivals that celebrate everything from crabs to chestnuts to soups - as well as popular Italian favourites like risotto and polenta. Anne Bianchi's Italian Festival Food is a celebration of the foods from these wonderful gatherings with more than 200 recipes representing the best of these festivals, with chapters organised by course, from appetisers and salads to desserts. The book also features nine insightful and fascinating essays, highlighting specific festivals and the people involved in their success.

Anne Bianchi is a New York City-based food writer of Italian heritage who spends half of each year in her ancestral home in Tuscany. She is the author of several Italian cookbooks, including From the Tables of Tuscan Women, Zuppa!, and The Book of Tuscan Desserts.

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Ferragosto

A chance to enjoy quieter cities while Italians take a holiday

Ferragosto is a traditional festival that dates back
to Roman times and has religious significance too

Italy, San Marino and the Italian speaking region of Switzerland all celebrate Ferragosto on this day every year with a public holiday.

This day of celebration originated during Roman times, when Feriae Augusti, the festival of the Roman Emperor Augustus, took place on 1 August. It was a day of rest for working people to signal the culmination of weeks of hard work by labourers on the land.

The month of August itself is named after Augustus. Its original name was sextilis, as it was the sixth month in the Roman calendar. Just as Julius Caesar had previously renamed quintilis - the fifth month - Iulius after himself, it was only natural for Augustus, as Julius Caesar’s chosen heir, to follow suit.

Over the centuries, it became traditional for workers to wish their employers ‘Buon Ferragosto, and to receive a bonus of extra money from their bosses in return. During the Renaissance, this tradition actually became law throughout the Papal States.

The Catholic Church moved the date for Ferragosto to 15 August to coincide with the celebrations for the Feast of the Assumption, a day of worship to mark the ascendance of the Virgin Mary into Heaven.

Many Italians head for the nation's famous
beaches when the Ferragosto holiday begins

In the 20th century, Mussolini gave Italian workers the chance to visit cultural cities, or to go to the seaside between 14 and 16 August, with special ‘holiday trains’ offering people rail tickets at discounted prices.

Horses, donkeys and mules were also released from their work for this period in August and it therefore became traditional for their owners to decorate them with flowers to celebrate their holidays. As a result, horse races, such as the Palio dell’Assunta in Siena became established and the first of the two annual runnings of the famous Palio still takes place on 16 August.

The name Palio is thought to derive from the Latin word pallium, which refers to the piece of precious fabric that was given to the winners of horse races in Roman times. The 19th century opera, Pagliacci, by Ruggero Leoncavallo was named because the action in the story is meant to have taken place on the day of Ferragosto.

Nowadays, many businesses close for two weeks in the middle of August and their employees take a mandatory holiday during this period. Ferragosto gives Italians the chance to escape from the heat of the cities by taking a trip to the seaside, lakes or mountains. News bulletins are often dominated by reports of huge traffic jams on the autostrade as Italians leave the cities en masse.

The history of the Palio di Siena is closely
linked with the traditions of Ferragosto

This also gives tourists the chance to enjoy the big cities when they are quieter than usual. Although banks, post offices and some businesses are closed for Ferragosto, the museums, palaces and cultural sites remain open for Italian people and tourists to visit.

In many parts of Italy, there are special church services, religious processions and fireworks displays to enjoy on 15 August. It is traditional for families to get together to celebrate Ferragosto and therefore restaurants are open and many even offer special festive menus.

Public transport operates on a reduced ‘festivi’ timetable, so it is a good idea to check the times of buses and trains as they may be different from usual.

Buon Ferragosto!

Ferragosto is a good time to visit
attractions such as the Colosseum

Travel tip:

It is well worth visiting Rome at Ferragosto as the city will be quieter than usual, but the main cultural sites, such as the Pantheon, the Colosseum and Castel Sant’Angelo are all open. Most restaurants will remain open and many will be serving Pollo alla Romana, the traditional Roman Ferragosto dish of chicken cooked in a sauce of red and orange peppers and tomatoes.

Ferragosto on Lake Garda is famous for many
spectacular fireworks displays

Travel tip:

Lake Garda in Lombardy is a lively place to visit for Ferragosto as there are often fireworks displays, live music and other events taking place at the side of the lake in many of the resorts.  The town of Garda is famous for its Palio delle Contrade, a rowing race staged in celebration of the fishing community that has been repeated annually for over 50 years. It takes place as dusk falls on the stretch of water between the port and the town hall, contested by the flat-based gondolas representing the nine contrade - neighbourhoods - of the town. Each boat is crewed by four oarsmen in full traditional costume, with the winners receiving a wooden statue of Our Lady Of Assumption.

Also on this day:

1702: The birth of landscape painter Francesco Zuccarelli 

1922: The birth of economic historian Carlo Cipolla

1944: The birth of fashion designer Gianfranco Ferré

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