4 October

NEW - The Gregorian Calendar

Why a 16th century Pope decreed that 10 days would not happen

The Gregorian Calendar, which is used today by every country in the world with just four exceptions, was introduced by Pope Gregory XIII on this day in 1582.  The calendar replaced the Julian calendar, which had been implemented by Julius Caesar in 46 BC but which was based on a miscalculation of the length of the solar year and had gradually fallen out of sync with the seasons.  The Catholic Church wanted to make the change because the actual spring equinox - one of the two days in each year when the sun appears directly above the equator - was drifting further away from the ecclesiastical date of the equinox, which in turn determines the date of Easter.  In Christian tradition, Easter marks the resurrection of Jesus three days after his crucifixion, which historical evidence suggests occurred around the time of the spring equinox, nominally dated as March 21.  The miscalculation in the Julian calendar seems tiny, an assumption that the average solar year was exactly 365.25 days when the reality is 365.2422 days. Yet even after the inclusion of the supposedly corrective leap year every four years, the error meant that over the 1,628 years of the calendar’s use, the gap between the actual equinox and the date of the equinox in the ecclesiastical year had grown to 12.7 days.  Read more…

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Francesco Solimena - painter

Neapolitan artist who influenced a generation

Francesco Solimena, a prolific painter in the Baroque style who became one of the wealthiest and most influential artists in Europe, was born on this day in 1657 in Canale di Sereno, a village in Campania about 14km (9 miles) southeast of Avellino.  He spent most of his working life in Naples yet his fame spread far beyond and his work was in such demand among his wealthy patrons, including Prince Eugene of Savoy, Louis XIV of France and Pope Benedict XIII, that he acquired a considerable fortune, was given the title of baron and lived in a palace.  His workshop became effectively an academy, at the heart of the Naples cultural scene. Among many who trained there were the leading painters Francesco de Mura, Giuseppe Bonito, Corrado Giaquinto and Sebastiano Conca.  The Scottish portraitist Allan Ramsay was a pupil in his studio in around 1737-38.  Solimena’s own training came initially from his father, Angelo, a revered painter of frescoes, with whom he worked at the cathedral of Nocera in the province of Salerno, and at the church of San Domenico at Solofra, not far from his home village.  He often worked in Nocera later in life.  Read more…

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Bernardino Ramazzini - physician

Pioneer in knowledge of occupational diseases, cancer and malaria

The physician Bernardino Ramazzini, often described as the “father of occupational medicine” and responsible also for pioneering work in the study of cancer and the treatment of malaria, was born in Carpi in Emilia-Romagna on this day in 1633.  Ramazzini’s tour de force, which he completed at the age of 67, was his book De Morbis Artificum Diatriba - Discourse of the Diseases of Workers - which came to be regarded as a seminal work in his field, the lessons from which still influence practice today in the prevention and treatment of occupational diseases.  A student at the University of Parma, Ramazzini was appointed chair of theory of medicine at the University of Modena in 1682 and professor of medicine at the University of Padua from 1700 until his death in 1714.  It was while he was in Parma that he began to take an interest in diseases suffered by workers.  When he became a departmental head at Modena, he began to study the health problems of workers in a more systematic way.  He would visit their workplaces, observe the activities they undertook in their work and discuss their health problems with them.  Read more…

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Ignazio Boschetto - tenor

Talented singer is known for being the funny guy in Il Volo

Ignazio Boschetto, a singer in the award-winning pop and opera trio Il Volo, was born on this day in 1994 in Bologna in the region of Emilia-Romagna.  His Sicilian parents, Vito Boschetto and Caterina Licari, took him back to live in Sicily and he grew up in Marsala in the province of Trapani in the most western part of Sicily.  He has said in interviews that from being about three years old he used to sing operatic arias alone in his room, such as La donna e mobile from Rigoletto by Giuseppe Verdi, much to the surprise of his parents.  Ignazio could be classed as a lyric tenor, considering the timbre of his voice, which is warm and soft, but strong enough to sing over an orchestra. A complete artist, Ignazio also plays the piano, guitar and drums.  When he was 12 he started to take part in festivals and competitions and in December 2007 he reached the finals of the Premio Nave Punica, winning third place among competitors of all ages.  The following year he won the 11th Festival della Canzone di Custonaci singing Il mare calmo della sera. In December, when he had turned 13, he won the third edition of the Premio Nave Punica.  Read more…

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Giovanni Battista Piranesi – artist

Genius who put 18th century Rome on the map

Draftsman, printmaker and architect Giovanni Battista Piranesi was born on this day in 1720 in Mogliano Veneto near Treviso in the Veneto.  He became famous for his large prints depicting the buildings of Rome, which stimulated interest in Rome and inspired the neoclassical movement in art in the 18th century.  Piranesi went to Rome to work as a draftsman for the Venetian ambassador when he was 20. There he studied with some of the leading printmakers of the day.  It was during this period that he developed his own, original etching technique, producing rich textures and bold contrasts of light and shadow by means of intricate, repeated bitings of the copperplate.  Among his finest early prints are the Prisons - Carceri - imaginary scenes depicting ancient Roman ruins, which are converted into fantastic dungeons filled with scaffolding and instruments of torture.  Piranesi later opened a workshop in Via del Corso and created the series of vedute - views - of Rome that established his fame.  Among his best mature prints are the series Roman Antiquities - Le antichita romane, Views of Rome - Vedute di Roma - and views of the Greek temples at Paestum.  Read more…

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Feast of Saint Francis of Assisi

Lamps light up Assisi in memory of saint

The city of Assisi in Umbria is today celebrating the Feast Day - la festa - of their famous Saint, Francis - Francesco -  who is one of the most venerated religious figures in history.  It is the most important festival in the Franciscan calendar as it commemorates Saint Francis’s transition from this life to the afterlife.  For two days Assisi is illuminated by lamps burning consecrated oil. Special services are held in the Basilica Papale di San Francesco and the Basilica di Santa Maria degli Angeli.  The feast day is also celebrated in other churches all over the world and children are encouraged to bring their pets to be blessed in memory of Saint Francis’s love for animals.  Saint Francis was born Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone in about 1181 in Assisi but he was informally known as Francesco by his family.  A theory is that his father, Pietro di Bernardone, a prosperous silk merchant, decided to call his new son Francesco - the Frenchman - because he had been on business in France at the time of the birth.  His wife, Pica de Bourlemont, was a noblewoman from Provence, although it was she who chose the name Giovanni.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Art and Architecture in Italy, 1600–1750 – Volume 3: Late Baroque, by by Rudolf Wittkower

This classic survey of Italian Baroque art and architecture focuses on the arts in every centre between Venice and Sicily in the early, high, and late Baroque periods. The heart of the study, however, lies in the architecture and sculpture of the exhilarating years of Roman High Baroque, when Bernini, Borromini, and Cortona were all at work under a series of enlightened popes. Wittkower’s text is now accompanied by a critical introduction and substantial new bibliography. This edition also included colour illustrations for the first time.  Art and Architecture in Italy, 1600–1750 – Volume 3: Late Baroque is the third book in the three volume survey.

Rudolf Wittkower was a Berlin-born British art historian specializing in Italian Renaissance and Baroque art and architecture, who spent much of his career in London, but was educated in Germany, and later moved to the United States. 

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The Gregorian Calendar

Why a 16th century Pope decreed that 10 days would not happen

The cover page of the first printed
edition of the calendar, in 1582

The Gregorian Calendar, which is used today by every country in the world with just four exceptions, was introduced by Pope Gregory XIII on this day in 1582.

The calendar replaced the Julian calendar, which had been implemented by Julius Caesar in 46 BC but which was based on a miscalculation of the length of the solar year and had gradually fallen out of sync with the seasons.

The Catholic Church wanted to make the change because the actual spring equinox - one of the two days in each year when the sun appears directly above the equator - was drifting further away from the ecclesiastical date of the equinox, which in turn determines the date of Easter. 

In Christian tradition, Easter marks the resurrection of Jesus three days after his crucifixion, which historical evidence suggests occurred around the time of the spring equinox, nominally dated as March 21. 

The miscalculation in the Julian calendar seems tiny, an assumption that the average solar year was exactly 365.25 days when the reality is 365.2422 days. Yet even after the inclusion of the supposedly corrective leap year every four years, the error meant that over the 1,628 years of the calendar’s use, the gap between the actual equinox and the date of the equinox in the ecclesiastical year had grown to 12.7 days.

Aloysus Lilius, one of a number of Italian scientists invited by Pope Gregory XIII to submit proposals for how the calendar might be reformed, realised that the addition of a leap year on an unvarying four-year cycle still made the calendar slightly too long. 

Lilius - sometimes called Luigi Lilio or Luigi Giglio - came up with a variation that adds leap days in years divisible by four, unless the year is also divisible by 100. If the year is also divisible by 400, a leap day is added regardless. 

A bust of the scientist
Aloysus Lilius

The German mathematician, Christopher Clavius, described as the architect of the Gregorian calendar, made slight modifications but largely adopted the Lilius formula as presented.

The formula did not completely correct the problem, but reduced the drifting apart of the solar equinox and the ecclesiastical equinox to just a few seconds per year, which means it will take until 4909 for the solar year and the Gregorian calendar year to be just one day out of sync. 

The more dramatic part of the change came in correcting the cumulative effect of the Julian calendar’s miscalculation so that re-alignment could happen immediately. To make this happen, 1582 was shortened by 10 days.

Thus when midnight was reached on Thursday, October 4, the date of the next day was changed to Friday, October 15.

The Gregorian calendar also renumbered the leap day as February 29, ending the practice in the Julian Calendar by which every four years February 24 lasted 48 hours rather than 24.

Nowadays, only four countries in the world - Afghanistan, Iran, Ethiopia and Nepal - do not use the Gregorian calendar, although its acceptance when first introduced was by no means universal and it was several hundred years before it became recognised as the world’s calendar.

Pope Gregory XIII had a
reputation as a reformer

The countries and colonies of Spain, Portugal, France, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Italy, the Catholic Low Countries and Luxembourg instituted it immediately.

However, the Protestant countries largely rejected the change at first because of its introduction by a Catholic pontiff. It was not until 1700 that Protestant Germany switched over, while Great Britain and its colonies - including at that time much of what would become the United States of America - remained faithful to the Julian calendar until 1752.

Another 121 years had passed before Japan made the change in 1873, China did not come on board until 1912 and Saudi Arabia - the last country to make the switch - not until just seven years ago, in 2016.

Many countries - including most of Western Europe - also agreed to standardise New Year’s Day as January 1 with the introduction of the Gregorian calendar. Until 1752, the start of a new year in Great Britain had been March 25 - the Feast of the Annunciation, also known as Lady Day.

The Piazza Maggiore, pictured at dusk, is the
heart of the city of Bologna

Travel tip:

Pope Gregory XIII was born Ugo Boncompagni in Bologna in 1502. Bologna is one of Italy's oldest cities, with a history that can be traced back to 1,000BC or possibly earlier, with a settlement that was developed into an urban area by the Etruscans, the Celts and the Romans.  The University of Bologna, the oldest in the world, was founded in 1088.  Bologna's city centre, which has undergone substantial restoration since the 1970s, is one of the largest and best preserved historical centres in Italy, characterised by 38km (24 miles) of walkways protected by porticoes.  At the heart of the city is the beautiful Piazza Maggiore, dominated by the Gothic Basilica of San Petronio, which at 132m long, 66m wide and with a facade that touches 51m at its tallest, is the 10th largest church in the world and the largest built in brick.

The rugged hill-top town of Cirò in Calabria.
the birthplace of Aloysius Lilius

Travel tip:

Aloysius Lilius, a doctor, astronomer, philosopher and chronologist, was born in Cirò, in Calabria, a rugged hill town about 40km (25 miles) north of the port city of Crotone, on the Ionian Sea coast, of which it offers commanding views. The site of a settlement since the Bronze Age, the town became an important regional centre between about 1300 and 1500, with a castle that has now fallen into disrepair. The town’s economy is based on agriculture, with the production of oil, wine, cereals and citruses as well as cattle breeding. Cirò is famous for the production of Calabria's most important wine, marketed simply as Cirò, a red wine made from Gaglioppo grapes, sometimes described as ‘Calabria’s Barolo’. On the coast below, Cirò Marina is a town of 14,000 inhabitants that has become a popular resort which has been awarded Blue Flag status for the quality of its sea water. Archaeological finds unearthed locally provide evidence of the area’s importance at the time of Magna Graecia.

Also on this day:

1633: The birth of physician Bernardino Ramazzini

1657: The birth of painter Francesco Solimena 

1720: The birth of printmaker Giovanni Battista Piranesi

1994: The birth of tenor Ignazio Boschetto

The Feast Day of Saint Francis of Assisi 

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3 October

Francesco Bianchini - jockey

19th century rider who contested Palio di Siena 55 times

The jockey Francesco Bianchini, who holds the record for the most consecutive participations in the historic Palio di Siena horse race, was born on this day in 1808 in Siena.  Bianchini, who raced under the name of Campanino, rode in 44 editions of the famous event, in which horses and riders represent 10 of the city of Siena’s 17 contrade or districts, without missing one between his debut in 1827 and the second running of the twice-yearly race in 1847. He rode in 55 editions in total before he retired for good in 1860, at the age of 51, chalking up a total of nine wins. In his career, he rode for all bar two of the 17 contrade.  Held in July and again in August every summer in the mediaeval square at the centre of Siena, the Piazza del Campo, with occasionally an extra race to commemorate a special event or anniversary, the Palio can be a brutal affair.  The 10 participants in the bareback contest race each other on a temporary dirt track around the perimeter of the shell-shaped piazza. The race consists of three laps, which the horses cover at such a furious pace that the whole thing is over in about 90 seconds.  Read more…

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Alessandro Mazzinghi - boxing champion

Tuscan fighter held world title twice

The boxer Alessandro 'Sandro' Mazzinghi, who won the world light middleweight championship twice in his 64-fight career, was born on this day in 1938 in Pontedera in Tuscany.  Mazzinghi won the title for the first time at the Velodromo Vigorelli in Milan in September 1963, defeating the American Ralph Dupas, defending his title successfully in a rematch in Sydney, Australia in December of the same year.  He lost the crown to fellow Italian Nino Benvenuti in 1965 at the San Siro football stadium in Milan but regained it at the same venue in May 1968, defeating  the South Korean Ki-Soo.  He did so after recovering from an horrific car crash in January 1964 that claimed the life of his young wife, Vera, only 12 days after they were married.  The couple had been on their way home to Pontedera from a gala dinner in Montecatini Terme in Tuscany when their car slid off a muddy road in heavy rain and collided with a tree.  Vera was killed instantly and Mazzinghi, who was thrown from the car, suffered a fractured skull.  He was in a critical condition for several days but recovered. Amazingly, he was back in the ring within weeks.  Read more…

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Ruggero Raimondi - opera star

Singer overcame shyness to become a great bass-baritone

The bass-baritone singer Ruggero Raimondi, who would become famous for his performances in the operas of Verdi, Rossini, Puccini and Mozart, was born on this day in Bologna in 1941.  Blessed with a mature voice at an early age, he was soon encouraged to pursue a career in opera and enrolled at the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory in Milan at the age of only 16, later continuing his studies in Rome at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia.  He won a national competition for young singers in Spoleto and made his debut in the same Umbrian city in 1964 in the role of Colline in Giacomo Puccini's La bohème in 1964. Soon afterwards, he appeared in the leading role of Procida in Verdi’s I vespri siciliani at the Rome Opera House.  Raimondi was also studying accountancy, wary that his ambitions in opera might not materialise.  But then came an audition at La Fenice opera house in Venice, after which Raimondi was offered a five-year contract.  Naturally shy, he struggled with the acting element to operas but was able to conquer his inhibitions with the help of acting lessons and work with a vocal coach who taught him interpretation.  Read more…

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Eleonora Duse – actress

Performer 'became' the person she played with her whole being

Regarded as one of the greatest acting talents of all times, Eleonora Duse was born on this day in 1858 in Vigevano in Lombardy.  Often simply known as Duse, she was admired for her total assumption of the roles she played. In 1947, the film, Eleonora Duse, was made about her life.  She began acting at the age of four, joining her father and grandfather in the profession. She worked in a troupe with her family, travelling from city to city. Duse became famous for creating Italian versions of roles made famous by the actor Sarah Bernhardt.  Duse toured South America, Russia and the US, beginning the tours as an unknown actor, but leaving in her wake a general recognition of her genius.  She had an affair with the Italian poet, Arrigo Boito, who was the librettist for the composer, Giuseppe Verdi.  They carried out their relationship in a clandestine manner, but the letters they exchanged have survived and they remained on good terms until Boito’s death in 1918.  In 1895 Duse met the writer Gabriele D’Annunzio and they became involved romantically as well as professionally.  D’Annunzio wrote four plays for her but when he gave the lead in La Città Morta to Sarah Bernhardt instead of her, Duse ended her relationship with him.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Living the Palio: A Story of Community and Public Life in Siena, by Thomas W Paradis

A maddening, twice-annual horse race held in Siena's public square, the Palio is less a sport than it is a game--one that involves a combination of bare-back riding skills, human deal-making, and a large dose of fate. The 90-second race and the rituals that surround it have continued largely uninterrupted since the 1500s, serving as the primary source of identity for the city's 17 neighbourhoods, or contrade. The Palio can therefore confuse short-term visitors who see little more than an afternoon of pageantry followed by three laps of ferocious racing. On the surface, jockeys wear uniquely coloured outfits and attempt to survive the narrow, uneven track while beating one another with stick-like whips. Living the Palio thus provides a freshly upbeat and accessible introduction to Siena's centuries-old festival, along with the intriguing cultural traditions that underlie it. Thomas Paradis weaves witty stories of personal discovery with a peak into Siena's little-known customs.  Complete with detailed, play-by-play accounts of multiple races, Living the Palio may elicit your own emotional reactions as you cheer on a favourite competitor.

Thomas Paradis is a professor of geography and community planning at Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA. He was previously a professor at Northern Arizona University where he wrote about urban development, cultural landscapes, and curriculum design. He has taught and led various study-abroad programmes in Italy. 

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2 October

Joe Profaci - Mafia boss

Sicilian who influenced profile of Mario Puzo’s Godfather

The Mafia boss Giuseppe ‘Joe’ Profaci, one of the real-life gangsters who influenced the author Mario Puzo as he created the character of his fictional mob boss Vito Corleone in The Godfather, was born in Villabate in Sicily on this day in 1897.  It was after studying Profaci’s crime career that Puzo decided that Corleone, who is thought to have been based largely on one of Profaci's fellow mob bosses, Carlo Gambino, should hide his criminal activities behind his ‘legitimate’ identity as an olive oil importer, mirroring what Profaci did in real life in New York.  Profaci is believed to have started importing olive oil before he became heavily involved in crime but chose to keep the business going as one of a network of legitimate companies, so that he could mask the proceeds of his crime empire and satisfy the authorities that he was paying his taxes.  In fact, the olive oil business became a hugely lucrative concern, particularly when shortages in the Second World War enabled him to sell the product at premium prices. The irony of Profaci’s criminal life was that his legitimate companies, of which he had as many as 20, actually provided work for hundreds of New Yorkers.  Read more…

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Antonio Di Pietro – magistrate and politician

Former policeman who led mani pulite corruption investigations

The politician and former magistrate Antonio Di Pietro, who uncovered wide-ranging corruption in the Italian government in a scandal that changed the landscape of Italian politics, was born on this day in 1950 in Molise.  Di Pietro was the lead prosecutor in the so-called mani pulite trials in the early 1990s, which led to many politicians and businessmen being indicted and to the collapse of the traditional Socialist and Christian Democratic parties.  The Christian Democrats had been the dominant force in Italian politics since the formation of the Italian Republic at the end of the Second World War but after several high-profile arrests and resignations and poor results in the 1992 general election and 1993 local elections the party was disbanded in 1994.  The Italian Socialist Party was dissolved in the same year following the resignation of party secretary and former prime minister Bettino Craxi, who was the most high-profile casualty in the corruption scandal. It was also known as tangentopoli, which can be roughly translated as “Bribesville”.  Di Pietro was born into a poor rural family in Montenero di Bisaccia, a hill town in the province of Campobasso in the Molise region.  Read more…

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Saint Charles Borromeo

Great reformer earned appreciation after his death

Charles (Carlo) Borromeo, a leading Catholic figure who led the movement to combat the spread of Protestantism, was born on this day in Milan in 1538.  Part of the noble Borromeo family, he became a Cardinal and brought in many reforms to benefit the Church, which made him unpopular at the time. But he was held in high regard after his death and was quickly made a saint by Pope Paul V.  Borromeo was born at the Castle of Arona on Lake Maggiore, near Milan. His father was Count of Arona and his mother was part of the Medici family.  He was educated in civil and canon law at the University of Pavia.  When his uncle, Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Medici became Pope Pius IV in 1559, Borromeo was brought to Rome and given a post in the Vatican.  The following year the Pope made him a Cardinal and asked him to supervise the Franciscans, Carmelites and Knights of Malta and organise the last session of the Council of Trent, which was being held in Trento to reform the Church and counter the spread of Protestantism.  The Council issued a long list of decrees covering disputed aspects of the Catholic religion as well as denouncing what it considered to be heresies committed in the name of Protestantism.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: The Mafia Encyclopedia; From Accardo to Zwillman (Third Edition), by Carl Sifakis

Organised crime is the greatest criminal phenomenon of our time. From Al Capone, who boldly claimed his bootlegging activities were a public service, to John Gotti, the "Teflon don" who died in prison, these criminals have garnered headlines and captured the public imagination with their flamboyant lifestyles and colourful attitudes. Immortalised in books, movies, and popular television shows such as The Sopranos and Growing Up Gotti, these gangsters, godfathers, hitmen, and dons have taken their place in criminal mythology, but the reality of their underworld endeavours is something entirely different. The Mafia Encyclopedia provides a comprehensive survey of the mob's most influential perpetrators and personalities, including their hangouts and hideaways, their plays for power, their schemes and crimes, and their unique culture and jargon. More than 100 illustrations, approximately 500 entries, and a chronology overturn the Mafia myths with an unflinching look at the brutal and bizarre culture and characters of organised crime.

Carl Sifakis is a New York-based freelance writer, former newspaper crime reporter, and longtime student of organised crime. He has written several books on crime and criminals. 

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