Asia Argento - actress and director

Twice winner of Italian ‘Oscar’ with turbulent private life

Asia Argento pictured with her father, the celebrated
horror film director, Dario Argento, at Cannes in 2012

The actress and director Asia Argento, whose father is the influential horror movie director Dario Argento, was born on this day in 1975 in Rome.

Argento’s mother was the actress Daria Nicolodi, granddaughter of the composer Alfredo Casella. She appeared in her first movie at the age of nine and turned out to have such a talent for acting she had won two David di Donatello best actress awards - the Italian equivalent of an Oscar - by the time she was 21.

As well as appearing in around 50 movies, some of which she also wrote and directed, and a number of television productions, Argento’s artistic talents have ranged to writing short stories and novels and recording solo albums as a singer.

Her private life has been somewhat turbulent. Married for five years to the director Michele Civetta, she was previously in a long-term relationship with the Italian rock musician Morgan, and later became romantically involved with the celebrity chef and documentary maker Anthony Bourdain, who took his own life at the age of 61.

Argento was a key figure in the
film industry's #MeToo movement

After alleging in 2017 that she had been raped by the since-jailed producer Harvey Weinstein at the Cannes Film Festival at the age of 21, Argento became a central figure in the #MeToo movement.

In 2018 she found herself at the heart of another sexual scandal, this time as the alleged perpetrator, when the New York Times reported claims from Jimmy Bennett, who had worked with Argento as a child actor, that he had been assaulted by her in a hotel room in California at the age of 17, below that state’s age of consent. Argento denied the allegation, although later reached a financial settlement with Bennett.

Argento’s first name appears in the records of the Rome register office as Aria after “Asia” was deemed inappropriate by officials at the time, although she has never been known as anything else. She claimed she took up acting in an attempt to grab her father’s attention during a childhood in which she said he was often absent because of work.

It worked. Two of her first three parts were in films produced by her father, who then directed her in a starring role in his 1993 horror-mystery Trauma.

Within a year, Argento had landed the first of her David di Donatello awards as best actress for her portrayal of a paraplegic in Perdiamoci di vista - roughly translated as 'Let’s Not Keep in Touch' - a bittersweet comedy directed by Carlo Verdone, who also co-stars.

Three years later, a second David di Donatello for best actress came her way after she starred in American director Peter del Monte’s drama Compagna di Viaggio - Travelling Companion - as a waitress who is asked by a friend to shadow her father, who has memory problems.

Argento has combined her 
acting career with music

In 2000, Argento moved into directing with Scarlet Diva, which she also wrote and her father co-produced. The film was well received by the critics. She directed Bennett, who was seven at the time, in The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things four years later, herself playing a drug-addicted prostitute single mother, with Bennett cast as her son.

She won a Nastro d’Argento award - the prestigious award made by Italian film journalists - for the 2014 production, Incompresa - Misunderstood - which she directed and co-wrote.

A fluent English speaker, she became known to wider cinema audiences through starring in the 2002 Hollywood blockbuster, xXx, directed by Rob Cohen, in which she played an undercover spy, appearing alongside Vin Diesel and Samuel L Jackson, and landed a number of Hollywood roles as a consequence, before returning to the European cinema scene.

Alongside her film career, she is heavily involved with music. A singer with a deep, intense voice, she collaborated with a number of musicians in different genres, from traditional ballads to experimental new wave and techno rock. So far, she has released eight singles and two studio albums as well as appearing as a guest performer with other artists.

Her many TV appearances include participation in the 11th edition of Ballando con le Stelle - the Italian equivalent of America’s Dancing with the Stars and the UK’s Strictly Come Dancing - in which she was eliminated in week eight.

Argento published an autobiography, Anatomia di un cuore selvaggio (Anatomy of a Wild Heart), in 2021. She has two children, a daughter from her relationship with Morgan and a son by Michele Civetta, with whom she reportedly lives in the Vigna Clara neighbourhood to the north of Rome’s city centre.

In 2022, after taking a step back from films for a number of years, Argento made a comeback, again directed by her father, in Dark Glasses, a dark thriller in which she plays the guardian of a blind woman being hunted by a psychotic killer.

Dario Argento's Profondo Rosso store in Rome
also houses his Museum of Horror

Travel tip:

Dario Argento’s standing among horror movie fans is such that, in 1989, he opened a memorabilia shop in Via dei Gracchi, a short distance from the Vatican and Castel Sant’Angelo in the heart of Rome. Named Profondo Rosso (Deep Red) after the title of one of Argento’s most popular films, which starred David Hemmings and Argento’s wife, Daria Nicolodi, it is a small premises crammed to the rafters with rubber masks, costumes, props, posters and model figures. It is also the home of Argento’s Museum of Horror, a red-painted basement accessed via a door next to the till, containing model reconstructions of famously gory scenes from his extensive back catalogue.

The historic Ponte Milvio is one of the Rome
attractions accessible on foot from Vigna Clara

Travel tip:

Vigna Clara, where Asia Argento has a home, is a pleasant neighbourhood to the north of the historical centre of Rome, reached by crossing the Tiber via the Ponte Flaminio and proceeding north about 1.5km (1 mile). It has a lively commercial centre with good amenities and several public parks, while the residential streets comprise elegant buildings and upmarket villas. It offers access on foot to tourist attractions such as the historic Ponte Milvio, the Stadio Olimpico and the Auditorium Parco della Musica.  It is a 15-minute train ride from the Vatican, while the main city centre attractions are about 40 minutes away by train and metro.  The neighbourhood's church of Santa Chiara a Vigna Clara, designed by Alberto Ressa and opened in 1962, is unusual for having a circular layout.

Also on this day:

1378: Election of Pope Clement VII

1870: Rome’s walls breached in final act of unification

1934: The birth of actress Sophia Loren

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19 September

Festival of San Gennaro

Worldwide celebrations for patron saint of Naples

Local worshippers, civic dignitaries and visitors meet together in the Duomo in Naples every year on this day to remember the martyrdom of the patron saint of the city, San Gennaro.  Each year a service is held to enable the congregation to witness the dried blood of the saint, which is kept in a glass phial, miraculously turn to liquid.  The practice of gathering blood to be kept as a relic was common at the time of the decapitation of San Gennaro in 305.  The ritual of praying for the miracle of liquefaction of the blood on the anniversary of his death dates back to the 13th century.  Gennaro is said to have been the Bishop of Benevento and was martyred during the Great Persecution led by the Roman Emperor Diocletian for trying to protect other Christians.  His decapitation is believed to have taken place in Pozzuoli but his remains were transferred to Naples in the 15th century to be housed in the Duomo. The festival of the saint’s martyrdom is celebrated each year by Neapolitan communities all over the world and the recurrence of the miracle in Naples is televised and reported in newspapers.  On 19 September in 1926, immigrants from Naples congregated along Mulberry Street in the Little Italy section of Manhattan in New York City to celebrate the Festa di San Gennaro there for the first time.  Read more…

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Italo Calvino – writer

One of 20th century Italy's most important authors

Novelist and journalist Italo Calvino died on this day in 1985 in Siena in Tuscany.  Calvino was regarded as one of the most important Italian writers of fiction of the 20th century.  His best known works are the Our Ancestors trilogy, written in the 1950s, the Cosmicomics collection of short stories, published in 1965, and the novels, Invisible Cities, published in 1972 and If On A Winter’s Night A Traveller, published in 1979.  Both of Calvino’s parents were Italian, but he was born in Santiago de Las Vegas, a suburb of Havana in Cuba, in 1923, where his father, Mario, an agronomist and botanist, was conducting scientific experiments. Calvino’s mother, Eva, was also a botanist and a university professor. It is believed she gave Calvino the first name of Italo to remind him of his heritage.  Calvino and his parents left Cuba for Italy in 1925 and settled permanently in Sanremo in Liguria, where his father’s family had an ancestral home at San Giovanni Battista.  His family held the science subjects in greater esteem than the arts and Calvino, a prolific reader of stories as a child, is said to have ‘reluctantly’ studied agriculture.  Read more…

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Umberto Bossi - politician

Fiery leader of separatist Lega Nord

Controversial politician Umberto Bossi was born on this day in 1941 in the town of Cassano Magnago in Lombardy.  Until 2012, Bossi was leader of Lega Nord (Northern League), a political party whose goal was to achieve autonomy for northern Italy and establish a new independent state, to be called Padania.  With his distinctive, gravelly voice and penchant for fiery, sometimes provocative rhetoric, Bossi won a place in the Senate in 1987 representing his original party, Lega Lombarda. He was dismissed as an eccentric by some in the political mainstream but under his charismatic leadership Lega Nord became a force almost overnight.  Launched as Alleanza Nord in 1989, bringing together a number of regional parties including Bossi’s own Lega Lombarda, it was renamed Lega Nord in 1991 and fought the 1992 general election with stunning results.  With an impressive 8.7% of the vote, Lega Nord went into the new parliament with 56 deputies and 26 senators, making it the fourth largest party in Italy.  By 1996 that share had risen to 10% and Bossi had become a major figure in Italian politics.  Read more…

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Mariangela Melato - actress

Versatile star excelled on stage and screen

Mariangela Melato, who won acclaim for her work with the brilliant and sometimes controversial director Lina Wertmüller, played a camp villain in the comic book send-up Flash Gordon, and later excelled as a classical stage actress, was born on this day in 1941 in Milan.  She enjoyed her peak years on screen in the 1970s, most notably in Wertmuller’s The Seduction of Mimi, Love and Anarchy and Swept Away.  From the mid-80s onwards, Melato was based at the Teatro Stabile in Genoa, where she played many of the great classical parts in works by authors such as Pirandello, Euripides and Shakespeare.  She made her mark in television, notably winning praise for her portrayal of Mrs Danvers in an Italian adaptation of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca in 2008.  Melato’s father emigrated to Italy from Nazi Germany, changed his name from Honing to Melato and became a traffic policeman in Trieste. He moved to Milan and met his future wife, who worked as a seamstress.  Their daughter showed a talent for art and enrolled at the Brera Academy in Milan but was interested in acting and as a teenager employed her artistic talents working as a window dresser at the Milan department store La Rinascente, which helped pay for acting lessons.  Read more…

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Giuseppe Saragat – fifth President of Italy

Socialist politician opposed Fascism and Communism

Giuseppe Saragat, who was President of the Italian Republic from 1964 to 1971, was born on this day in 1898 in Turin.  As a Socialist politician, he was exiled from Italy by the Fascists in 1926.  When he returned to Italy in 1943 to join the partisans, he was arrested and imprisoned by the Nazi forces occupying Rome, but he managed to escape and resume clandestine activity within the Italian Socialist Party.  Saragat was born to Sardinian parents living in Turin and he graduated from the University of Turin in economics and commerce. He joined the Socialist party in 1922.  During his years in exile he did various jobs in Austria and France.  After returning to Italy, he was minister without portfolio in the first post-liberation cabinet of Ivanoe Bonomi in 1944.  He was sent as ambassador to Paris between 1945 and 1946 and was then elected president of the Constitutional Assembly that drafted postwar Italy’s new constitution.  At the Socialist Party Congress in 1947, Saragat opposed the idea of unity with the Communist Party and led those who walked out to form the Socialist Party of Italian Workers (PSLI).  Read more…

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Book of the Day: If on a Winter's Night a Traveller, by Italo Calvino

Italo Calvino established his reputation as an incomparable, genre-defying novelist and this is generally regarded as his masterpiece. In the publisher's words, the best way to describe the novel is by considering the following scenario: "You go into a bookshop and buy If on a Winter's Night a Traveller by Italo Calvino. You like it. But there is a printer's error in your copy. You take it back to the shop and get a replacement. But the replacement seems to be a totally different story. You try to track down the original book you were reading but end up with a different narrative again. This remarkable novel leads you through many different books including a detective adventure, a romance, a satire, an erotic story, a diary and a quest. But the real hero of them all is you, the reader."

Italo Calvino, an essayist and journalist and a member of the editorial staff of Einaudi in Turin, was one of the most respected writers of the 20th century. His other well-known fictional works include Invisible Cities, Marcovaldo and Mr Palomar. In 1973 he won the prestigious Premio Feltrinelli. William Weaver, the American-born translator of this edition, was acknowledged as the greatest of all Italian translators. Umberto Eco, whose metaphysical whodunnit The Name of the Rose was an international bestseller, joked that Weaver's translation was better than the orginal. 

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18 September

Rossano Brazzi - Hollywood star

Actor quit as a lawyer for career on the big screen

The movie actor Rossano Brazzi, whose credits include The Barefoot Contessa, Three Coins in the Fountain and South Pacific, was born on this day in 1916 in Bologna.  Brazzi gave up a promising career as a lawyer in order to act and went on to appear in more than 200 films, more often than not cast as a handsome heartbreaker or romantic aristocrat.  He was at his peak in the 50s and 60s but continued to accept parts until the late 80s. His last major role was as Father DeCarlo in Omen III: The Final Conflict in 1981.  Brazzi's family moved to Florence when he was aged four. His father Adelmo, a shoemaker, opened a leather factory in which Rossano, his brother Oscar and his sister, Franca, would all eventually work.  Adelmo had ambitions for Rossano, however, helping him win a place at the University of Florence, where he obtained a law degree, and then sending him to Rome to work in the legal practice of a family friend. But Rossano had become involved in a drama group at university and looked for opportunities to continue acting.  Eventually, he was approached by a film director and when he was offered a part in a film in 1939 he quit his job with the legal practice in order to devote himself to acting as a career.  Read more…

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Alberto Franchetti - opera composer

Caruso sang his arias on first commercial record in 1902

The opera composer Alberto Franchetti, some of whose works were performed by the great tenor Enrico Caruso for his first commercial recording, was born on this day in 1860 in Turin.  Caruso had been taken with Franchetti’s opera, Germania, when he sang the male lead role in the opera’s premiere at Teatro alla Scala in Milan in March 1902.  A month later, Caruso famously made his first recording on a phonograph in a Milan hotel room and chose a number of arias from Germania and critics noted that he sang the aria Ah vieni qui… No, non chiuder gli occhi vaghi with a particular sweetness of voice.  A friend and rival of Giacomo Puccini, Franchetti had a style said to have been influenced by the German composers Wagner and Meyerbeer. He was sometimes described as the "Meyerbeer of modern Italy."  Despite the exposure the success of Germania and the association with Caruso brought him, Franchetti’s operas slipped quite quickly into obscurity.  Blame for that can be levelled at least in part at the Fascist Racial Laws of 1938, which made life and work very difficult for Italy's Jewish population.  Read more…

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Francesca Caccini – singer and composer

Court musician composed oldest surviving opera by a woman

Prolific composer and talented singer Francesca Caccini was born on this day in 1587 in Florence.  Sometimes referred to by the nickname La Cecchina, she composed what is widely considered to be the oldest surviving opera by a woman composer, La Liberazione di Ruggiero, which was adapted from the epic poem, Orlando Furioso by Ludovico Ariosto.  Caccini was the daughter of the composer and musician, Giulio Caccini, and she received her early musical training from him. Like her father, she regularly sang at the Medici court.  She was part of an ensemble of singers referred to as le donne di Giulio Romano, which included her sister, Settimia, and other unnamed pupils.  After her sister married and moved to Mantua, the ensemble broke up, but Caccini continued to serve the court as a teacher, singer and composer, where she was popular because of her musical virtuosity.  She is believed to have been a quick and prolific composer but sadly very little of her music has survived. She was considered equal at the time to Jacopo Peri and Marco da Gagliano, who were also working for the court.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Italian Cinema, by Mary Wood

Italian Cinema presents an overview and analysis of one of the most prolific and influential of national cinemas.Italian film has always drawn on a wide range of popular themes - from ancient history to the mafia, the family, the Risorgimento, terrorism, corruption and immigration - and on an equally diverse range of film genres - from comedy to westerns, horror, soft-porn, epics and thrillers. Commercial constraints, state and European funding, international competition, as much as cultural and political trends, have all influenced the sorts of film that get made and exported.Outlining the artistic, cultural, technical and commercial context of film, Italian Cinema presents a history from silent to contemporary film. As well as illuminating the work of classic directors such as Visconti, Fellini, Rossellini, Antonioni and Rosi, the book explores the interaction between art and popular cinema, visual style and spectacle, space and architecture, gender representations and politics.  'Simply the best book available on any national cinema, capturing the look, feel and pleasure of film. It is a lifetime's work: a very successful integration of a profound knowledge of Italian cinema and culture, combined with a long and intensive involvement in the dynamic and combative culture of film theory, teaching and debate.' - Barry Curtis, Middlesex University.

Mary Wood is Reader in European Cinema at Birkbeck College, University of London.

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17 September

Ranuccio II Farnese – Duke of Parma

Feuding with the Popes led to the destruction of a city

Ranuccio II Farnese, who angered Innocent X so much that the Pope had part of his territory razed to the ground, was born on this day in 1630 in Parma.  Ranuccio II was the eldest son of Odoardo Farnese, the fifth sovereign duke of Parma, and his wife, Margherita de’ Medici.  Odoardo died while Ranuccio was still a minor and, although he succeeded him as Duke of Parma, he had to rule for the first two years of his reign under the regency of both his uncle, Francesco Maria Farnese, and his mother.  The House of Farnese had been founded by Ranuccio’s paternal ancestor, Alessandro Farnese, who became Pope Paul III. The Farnese family had been ruling Parma and Piacenza ever since Paul III gave it to his illegitimate son, Pier Luigi Farnese. He also made Pier Luigi the Duke of Castro.  While Odoardo had been Duke of Parma he had become involved in a power struggle with Pope Urban VIII, who was a member of the Barberini family. The Barberini family were keen to acquire Castro, which was north of Rome in the Papal States.  When Odoardo found himself unable to pay his debts, Urban VIII responded to the creditors’ pleas for help, by sending troops to occupy Castro.  Read more…

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Nives Meroi - mountaineer

One of history’s greatest female climbers 

The climber Nives Meroi, widely regarded as one of history’s finest female mountaineers, was born on this day in 1961 in Bonate Sotto, a small town in the province of Bergamo, about 40km (25 miles) northeast of Milan.  One half of a renowned husband-and-wife climbing team with Romano Benet, Meroi is one of only three women to have reached the peak of all 14 of the so-called eight-thousanders, the only mountains in the world that tower about 8,000m, topped by Everest (8,848m), which she conquered in 2007, and K2 (8,611), which she had scaled in 2006.  Meroi completed the full set of 14 when she reached the summit of Annapurna (8,091m) in the Himalayas in 2017.  She and Benet, born in Italy but who has Slovenian nationality, are the first married couple to have climbed all 14 together.  The two first met more than 40 years ago in Tarvisio in Friuli Venezia Giulia, Benet’s hometown, situated in an Alpine valley close to the borders with Austria and Slovenia. Meroi, a student, was sharing a house with Benet’s sister. They began hiking and climbing together after discovering they had a common love of the mountainous scenery.  Read more…

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Maria Luisa of Savoy

Girl from Turin ruled Spain while a teenager

Maria Luisa of Savoy, who grew up to become a queen consort of Spain with a lot of influence over her husband, King Philip V, was born on this day in 1688 at the Royal Palace in Turin.  She was the daughter of Victor Amadeus II, Duke of Savoy, and his French wife, Anne Marie d’Orleans.  Philip V of Spain wanted to maintain his ties with Victor Amadeus II and therefore asked for Maria Luisa’s hand in marriage. She was wed by proxy to Philip V in 1701 when she was still only 13.  Maria Luisa was escorted to Nice and from there sailed to Antibes en route to Barcelona. The official marriage took place in November of the same year.  Maria Luisa was both beautiful and intelligent and Phillip V was deeply in love with her right from the start.  In 1702 when Philip V left Spain to fight in the War of the Spanish Succession, Maria Luisa acted as Regent in his absence.  She was praised as an effective ruler despite being only 14 years old. She gave audiences to ambassadors, worked for hours with ministers, and prevented Savoy from joining the enemy. She inspired people to make donations towards the war effort and her leadership was admired throughout Spain.  Read more…

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Reinhold Messner - mountaineer

Climber from Dolomites who conquered Everest

Reinhold Messner, the Italian mountaineer who was the first climber to reach the summit of Mount Everest without supplemental oxygen and the first to reach the peak on a solo climb, was born on this day in 1944 in Bressanone, a town in Italy's most northerly region of Alto Adige, which is also known as South Tyrol.  Messner was also the first man to ascend every one of the world's 14 peaks that rise to more than 8,000 metres (26,000 ft) above sea level.  His 1976 ascent of Everest with the Austrian climber Peter Habeler defied numerous doctors and other specialists in the effects of altitude who insisted that scaling the world's highest mountain without extra oxygen was not possible.  Born only 45km (28 miles) from Italy's border with Austria, Messner grew up speaking German and Italian and has also become fluent in English.  His father, Josef, introduced him to climbing and took him to his first summit at the age of five. He soon became familiar with all the peaks of the Dolomites.   From a family of 10 children - nine of them boys - Messner shared his passion for adventure with brothers Günther and Hubert, with whom he would later cross the Arctic.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: A Brief History of Italy, by Jeremy Black

Despite the Roman Empire's famous 500-year reign over Europe, parts of Africa and the Middle East, Italy does not have the same long heritage as states such as France or England. Divided for much of its history, Italy's regions have been, at various times, parts of bigger, often antagonistic empires, notably those of Spain and Austria. In addition, its challenging and varied terrain made consolidation of political control all the more difficult. A Brief History of Italy covers, in very readable fashion, the formative events in Italy's past from the rise of Rome, through a unified country in thrall to fascism in the first half of the 20th century right up to today.  The birthplace of the Renaissance and the place where the Baroque was born, Italy has always been a hotbed of culture. Within modern Italy there is fierce regional pride in the cultures and identities that mark out regions such as Tuscany, Rome, Sicily and Venice. Jeremy Black draws on the diaries, memoirs and letters of historic travellers to Italy to gain insight into the passions of its people, first chronologically then regionally.  Black examines what it is that has given Italians such cultural clout - from food and drink, music and fashion, to art and architecture - and explores the causes and effects of political events, and the divisions that still exist today.

Jeremy Black MBE is a British historian, writer, and former professor of history at the University of Exeter. He is a senior fellow at the Center for the Study of America and the West at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  The author of over 180 books, principally on 18th-century British politics and international relations, he has been described by one commentator as "the most prolific historical scholar of our age".

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