1 January

Cesare Paciotti - shoe designer

Exclusive brand worn by many celebrities

The shoe designer Cesare Paciotti, whose chic collections have attracted a celebrity clientele, was born on New Year’s Day in 1958 in Civitanova Marche, a town on the Adriatic coast.  His company, Paciotti SpA, is still headquartered in Civitanova Marche, as it has been since his parents, Giuseppe and Cecilia, founded their craft shoe-making business in 1948, producing a range of shoes in classical designs made entirely by hand.  Today, the company, which trades as Cesare Paciotti, has major showrooms in Milan, Rome and New York and many boutique stores in cities across the world. The business, which also sells watches, belts, other accessories and some clothing lines, has an annual turnover estimated at more than $500 million (€437 million).  Cesare Paciotti inherited the family firm in 1980 at the age of 22, having spent his late teenage years and early adulthood pursuing his interest in the arts by studying Drama, Art and Music at the University of Bologna, and then travelling to London, the United States and the Far East.  When he returned home, he already had solid shoe making skills, having learned from his parents in their workshop as he grew up.  Read more…

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Claudio Villa - singing star

'King' of Sanremo sold 45 million records

The singer Claudio Villa, who sold 45 million records and won the Sanremo Music Festival four times, was born on New Year's Day in 1926 in the Trastevere district of Rome.  The tenor, nicknamed 'the little king' on account of his diminutive stature and fiery temper, lent his voice to popular songs rather than opera although his voice was of sufficient quality to include operatic arias in his repertoire.  His four wins at Sanremo, in 1955, 1957, 1962 and 1967, is the most by any individual performer, a record he shares with Domenico Modugno, the singer-songwriter who was at his peak in the same era.  Villa recorded more than 3,000 songs and enjoyed a successful film career, starring in more than 25 musicals. His biggest hits included Ti Voglio Come Sei, Binario, Non ti Scordar di Me, Buongiorno Tristezza and Granada.  He was a frequent guest on the Italian TV variety show Canzonissima, which was broadcast on state channel Rai Uno between 1958 and 1974. Later, he became a master of traditional Italian and Neapolitan songs.  Born Claudio Pica, the son of a taxi driver, he was raised in a working class area, living in the shadow of Rome's main prison in Via Lungara.  Read more…

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Guglielmo Libri – book thief

Nobleman stole more than 30,000 books and documents

The notorious 19th century thief Guglielmo Libri, who stole tens of thousands of historic books, manuscripts and letters, many of which have never been found, was born on this day in 1803 in Florence.  A distinguished and decorated academic, Libri was an avid collector of historic documents whose passion for adding to his collections ultimately became an addiction he could not satisfy by legal means alone.  He stole on a large scale from the historic Laurentian Library in Florence but it was after he was appointed Chief Inspector of French Libraries in 1841 – he had been a French citizen since 1833 – that his nefarious activities reached their peak.  As the man responsible for cataloguing valuable books and precious manuscripts across the whole of France, Libri had privileged access to the official archives of many cities and was able to spend many hours in dusty vaults completely unhindered and unsupervised.  He was in a position to “borrow” such items as he required in the interests of research with no pressure to return them. Where the removal of a book or document was forbidden, he would smuggle them out under the huge cape that he insisted on wearing.  Read more…

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Valentina Cortese – actress

Vibrant performer made more than 100 films

Film star Valentina Cortese was born on this day in 1923 in Milan.  She had an acting career lasting nearly sixty years and won an Academy Award nomination for her performance as an ageing, alcoholic movie star in Francois Truffaut’s Day for Night in 1973.  Cortese was born to a single mother, who sent her to live with her maternal grandparents in Turin when she was six years old.  She enrolled in the National Academy of Dramatic Arts in Rome at the age of 15 and made her screen debut in 1940. This paved the way for her first internationally acclaimed film in 1948, an Italian adaptation of Les Miserables with Gino Cervi and Marcello Mastroianni, in which she played the roles of both Fantine and Cosette.  She then appeared in the British film The Glass Mountain in 1949 and also appeared in many American films of the period, while continuing to work in Europe with directors such as Michelangelo Antonioni, Federico Fellini and Francois Truffaut.  After signing a contract with 20th Century Fox, Cortese starred in Malaya with Spencer Tracey and James Stewart and The House on Telegraph Hill with Richard Basehart and William Lundigan.  Read more…

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Capodanno in Italy

Toasting the New Year the Italian way

New Year’s Day is called Capodanno in Italy, which literally means ‘head of the year’.  It is a public holiday, and schools, Government offices, post offices and banks are closed.  After a late start following the New Year’s Eve festivities, many families will enjoy another traditional feast together, either at home or in a restaurant.  Visitors and residents will attend church services throughout the country before sitting down to a festive meal and toasting the new year with a glass of good Prosecco.   Rai Uno often broadcasts a New Year’s Day concert live.  The Catholic Church remembers cardinal-priest Giuseppe Maria Tomasi di Lampedusa who died on this day in 1713.  He was the son of the Prince of Lampedusa in Sicily but he renounced his inheritance and joined a religious order.  Later in life he worked to reform the church and was created a cardinal-priest by Pope Clement XI who admired his sanctity.  He was buried in a church near his home after his death but his remains were later transferred to the Basilica of Sant’Andrea della Valle in Rome and he was canonised by Pope John Paul II in 1986.  Read more…

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Book of the Day:  Mid-sized Manufacturing Companies: The New Driver of Italian Competitiveness, edited by Fulvio Coltorti, Riccardo Resciniti, Annalisa Tunisini and Riccardo Varaldo

The structure of Italian industry is characterized by a predominance of small sized companies and the presence of very few large companies. For a long time a conviction was shared among scholars and practitioners that the strength and safety of Italian industry were based on its industrial districts, that is, the system of interdependent and co-localized small companies which derive their competitive force from an effective and efficient division of labour. Mid-sized Manufacturing Companies: The New Driver of Italian Competitiveness stresses the idea that a new, vital and promising phenomenon for the competitiveness of Italian industry is focused on mid-sized companies, and the systems of interconnected firms that form a constituent part of their business model. These companies, which originate largely from districts and other local production systems, are a strong entrepreneurial force complementing the districts that have characterized Italy and made Italian industry famous worldwide. A quantitative and qualitative analysis of these firms is provided in this book. Business models and strategies implemented by a number of successful Italian mid-sized manufacturing companies are also explored. Consequences in terms of management and industrial policies are provided. A final look at the German Mittelstand gives a useful comparison.

Authors Fulvio Coltorti, Riccardo Resciniti and Riccardo Varaldo are prominent Italian  economists. Annalisa Tunisini is Professor of Marketing and Strategy at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan.

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31 December

Giovanni Michelucci - architect

Designer made mark with railway station and motorway church

The architect Giovanni Michelucci, whose major legacies include the Santa Maria Novella railway station in Florence, died on this day in 1990 in his studio just outside the Tuscan city at Fiesole.  Considered by many to be the 'father' of modern Italian architecture, he was only two days away from his 100th birthday.  He was still working and is said to have been inspecting progress on his latest project when he slipped and fell, later suffering a cardiac arrest.  Michelucci, who was born in Pistoia on January 2, 1891, is also remembered for the brilliantly unconventional church of San Giovanni Battista, with its tent-like curved roof, which forms part of a rest area on the Autostrada del Sole as it passes Florence.  The Santa Maria Novella station project for which he first won acclaim came after a collective of young architects known as the Tuscan Group, co-ordinated by Michelucci, beat more than 100 other entries in a national competition in the early 1930s to build a new station behind the church of the same name.  The linear design was loathed by conservatives but loved by modernists, although it could not be said to conform to the style identifiable as Fascist architecture in Italy at the time.  Read more…

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Eleonora Gonzaga, Duchess of Urbino

Image of wise ruler has been preserved in paintings

Eleonora Gonzaga, a noblewoman who was painted four times by Titian, was born on this day in 1493 in Mantua.  When she was 15 she married Francesco Maria I della Rovere, Duke of Urbino, the 16-year-old nephew of Pope Julius II and the marriage was celebrated at the Vatican in Rome.  Eleonora, along with the dowager duchess, Elisabetta Montefeltro, became largely responsible for the internal government of the duchy because Francesco was a captain in the papal army and often absent from Urbino. She also became an important patron of the arts.  Eleonora was the eldest of the seven children of Francesco II Gonzaga, Marquess of Mantua and Isabella d’Este. Although her father was a notorious libertine, her mother was also famous for being a patron of the arts. As a result, Eleonora was well educated in reading, writing, Latin, music and needlework, which had made her cultured and very suitable for marriage with another member of the nobility.  But, within six years of their marriage, the fortunes of Eleonora and her husband, Francesco, changed suddenly. The new pope, Leo X, ordered Francesco to lead an army in the pope’s planned invasion of France.  Read more…

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Giovanni Boldini – artist and portraitist

Sought-after painter who captured elegance of Belle Époque

Giovanni Boldini, whose sumptuous images of the rich and famous made him the most fashionable portrait painter in Paris during the Belle Époque era of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, was born in Ferrara on this day in 1842.  His subjects included some famous names, including the opera composer Giuseppe Verdi and the actress Sarah Bernhardt, and he had countless commissions from prominent individuals in Parisian society.  Boldini's skill was to capture his subject in soft-focus, elongating their features to accentuate beauty and creating a sense of motion in the figures so that they appeared to be both sophisticated and full of life.  He dressed his subjects in sumptuous gowns that would grace any fashion catwalk and society women in particular felt the need to confirm their status by having a Boldini portrait to show off to their friends and demanded that their wealthy husbands arrange a sitting.  Boldini came from an artistic background.  His father, Antonio, painted religious figures and scenes and had a house in Via Voltapaletto, which links Ferrara’s cathedral with the Basilica of San Francesco.  Read more…

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Giovanni Pascoli – poet

Painful childhood inspired great verse

Giovanni Placido Agostino Pascoli, who was regarded as the greatest Italian poet writing at the beginning of the 20th century, was born on this day in 1855 in San Mauro di Romagna, then part of the Kingdom of Sardinia.  Pascoli’s poems in Latin won prizes and he was regarded by the writer Gabriele D’Annunzio as the finest Latin poet since the Augustan age, which lasted from approximately 43 BC to AD 18 and was thought to be the golden age of Latin literature.  Although Pascoli was the fourth of ten children, his family were comfortable financially and his father, Ruggero Pascoli, was administrator of an estate of farmland on which they lived.  But when Giovanni Pascoli was just 12 years old, his father, returning from Cesena in a carriage drawn by a black and white mare, was shot and killed by an assassin hiding in a ditch at the side of the road. The mare carried on slowly and brought home the body of her master, Ruggero, but the murderer was never brought to justice.  Giovanni Pascoli’s mother died the following year and five other children in the family had also died before he became an adult.  Read more…

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Festa di San Silvestro – Feast of Saint Sylvester

Celebrating with a meal of pork and lentils for a prosperous New Year

New Year’s Eve in Italy is known as the Festa di San Silvestro in memory of Pope Sylvester I who died on this day in 335 in Rome.  It is not a public holiday in Italy but in normal times it is a festive time everywhere, with firework displays, concerts and parties.  One custom still followed in some parts of Italy is throwing your old things out of the window at midnight to symbolise your readiness to accept the New Year.  Throughout Italy, bars and restaurants are busy with residents and visitors enjoying drinks and meals before seeing in the New Year in the main square when the bells ring at midnight.  Popular menu items include cotechino (Italian sausage), zampone (stuffed pig’s trotter) and lenticchie (lentils).  Pork is said to represent the fullness or richness of life, while lentils are supposed to symbolise wealth or money. Many Italians believe the coming year could bring prosperity if these foods are eaten on New Year’s Eve.  The President of the Republic delivers an end of year message from the Quirinale in Rome, which is shown on most Italian television channels during the evening. There are live concerts in the open air in many squares throughout Italy, some of which are televised.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: The Architecture of Modern Italy: Volume Two - Visions of Utopia, 1900-Present, by Terry Kirk

This groundbreaking and authoritative survey is the first truly comprehensive history of modern Italian architecture and urbanism to appear in any language. Told in lively prose, it recounts more than 250 years of experimentation, creativity, and turmoil that have shaped the landscape of contemporary Italy. Visions of Utopia, 1900- Present tracks the development of Italy's architectural avant-garde through the upheavals of the twentieth century. Beginning with the development of Italian art nouveau - stile liberty - and moving through futurism, fascism, rationalism, and on to the creative experimentation of the present day, it explores the work of such pivotal figures as Raimondo d'Aronco, Antonio Sant'Elia, Adalberto Libera, Giuseppe Terragni, Pier Luigi Nervi, Gio Ponti, Carlo Scarpa, Aldo Rossi and Renzo Piano. The Architecture of Modern Italy is exhaustively illustrated with rare period images, new photography, maps, drawings, and plans. With Colin Rowe's Italian Architecture of the 16th Century, it provides a nearly complete overview of the history of Italian architecture.

Terry Kirk is a professor of architectural history at the American University of Rome.

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30 December

NEW - For a Few Dollars More released in Italy

Second in Spaghetti Western trilogy

The movie For a Few Dollars More, the second in what became known as the Dollars Trilogy of Spaghetti Westerns, was released for public viewing in Italy on this day in 1965.  Directed by Sergio Leone and starring Clint Eastwood as the Man with No Name, the film followed the unexpected success of the low-budget feature A Fistful of Dollars, released 15 months earlier, which overcame poor initial reviews to become, for a time, the biggest-grossing movie in Italian cinema history.  Released for Italian audiences as Per Qualche Dollaro in Più, the follow-up proved even more commercially successful than its predecessor. By 1967, it had displaced A Fistful of Dollars as the highest-grossing Italian production, generating 3.1 billion lire ($5 million) in ticket sales from more than 14 and a half million admissions.  Eastwood, who had been little known outside America before A Fistful of Dollars catapulted him to international fame, had been paid a reputed sum of just $15,000 for his role in the original film, from a production budget of only $200,000.  This time Leone had more money at his disposal after teaming up with Italian producer Alberto Grimaldi.  Read more…

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Titus – Roman emperor

'Good' ruler who helped victims of Vesuvius eruption

The Roman emperor Titus was born Titus Flavius Vespasianus on this day in AD 39.  He was emperor from AD 79 to 81 and is remembered for capturing Jerusalem and for completing the Colosseum in Rome.  Two months after his accession, on August 24, AD 79, Mount Vesuvius in Campania began erupting, eventually killing thousands of people around Pompeii and Herculaneum.  Titus appointed officials to coordinate the relief effort, while donating large amounts of money from the imperial treasury to aid the victims. He visited Pompeii twice.  Titus was a member of the Flavian dynasty and succeeded his father Vespasian after his death, becoming the first Roman emperor to come to the throne after his biological father.  Titus was believed to have been born in Rome on December 30, AD 39, the eldest son of Titus Flavius Vespasianus, who was commonly known as Vespasian.  His father had earned prestige as a military commander, taking part in the invasion of Britain in AD 43 under the emperor Claudius.  Titus served under his father in Judea during the first Jewish-Roman war.  Read more…

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Alessandra Mussolini – politician

Controversial granddaughter of Fascist dictator

The MEP Alessandra Mussolini, niece of actress Sophia Loren and granddaughter of Italy’s former Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, was born on this day in 1962 in Rome.  Formerly an actress and model, Mussolini entered politics in the early 1990s as a member of the neofascist Movimento Sociale Italiano, which had its roots in the Italian Social Republic, the German puppet state led by her grandfather from September 1943 until his death in April 1945.  Her views have changed in more recent years and she has become known for embracing modern issues including abortion, artificial insemination, gay rights and civil unions from a progressive standpoint that has more in common with left-wing feminism.  She has left behind her association with the far right and serves in the European Parliament as representative for Central Italy under a centre-right Forza Italia ticket.  However, she is not without some admiration for the policies of her grandfather.  Only recently she caused consternation when asked her opinion on what to do about an escalating Mafia war in the Roman seaside resort of Ostia by claiming that “granddad would have sorted this out in two or three months.”  Read more…

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Galeazzo Alessi – architect

Brilliant designer left legacy of beautiful palaces and churches

Italian architect Galeazzo Alessi, who designed some of the most impressive buildings in Genoa and Assisi, died on this day in 1572.  Born in Perugia in 1512, Alessi studied drawing for both civil and military architecture and developed great enthusiasm for ancient architecture, although he was also later influenced by Michelangelo.  He became known throughout Europe for his distinctive style and towards the end of his career was commissioned to design churches and palaces in France, Germany, Belgium and Spain.  A lot of his work can still be seen in Perugia and Assisi, where, in collaboration with another architect, Alessi designed the Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli in 1568.  In Genoa he designed some of the beautiful palaces with ornate decoration that have now been listed as Unesco world heritage sites and he was involved in planning the lay-out of the streets and the restoration of the city walls.  Alessi died at the age of 60 in Perugia before the designs that he had drawn up for El Escorial, the residence of the King of Spain, could be carried out.  Perugia, Alessi’s home town, is the capital city of the region of Umbria and one of the main Etruscan cities of Italy.  Read more…

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Camila Giorgi - tennis player

Italian who specialised in beating big names

The tennis player Camila Giorgi was born on this day in 1991 in Macerata, a city in the Marche region.  Giorgi rose to 26 in the Women’s Tennis Association world rankings at the end of 2018, at which time there was no other Italian woman in the top 100.  This followed a breakthrough year for Giorgi in which she reached the quarter-finals of a Grand Slam event for the first time, at the Wimbledon Championships in London in June.  Giorgi was not seeded but after defeating 21st seed Anastasija Sevastova in the first round, she advanced through her section of the draw with three more victories, culminating in a straight-sets win over former world No 8 Ekaterina Makarova in the fourth round.  That earned Giorgi a last-eight meeting with seven-times Wimbledon champion and world record grand slam winner Serena Williams.  Giorgi won the first set but Williams fought back to win the match.  Earlier in the 2018 summer, Giorgi had delivered her best performance at the French Open by reaching the third round. Later in the year, she won her second career WTA tournament, the Linz Open in Austria.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Roman Emperors: A Guide to the Men Who Ruled the Empire, by Mario Bartolini 

Roman Emperors is a concise chronological guide to the emperors who ruled the Roman Empire. It covers the period from the establishment of the Empire by Augustus in 27 BCE to the abdication of Romulus Augustus in 476 CE, an event that marks the official end of the existence of the Roman Empire as a political entity in Western Europe. After a useful introduction to the late Republic and its transformation into the Empire, each of the eighty-five emperors customarily recognized as legitimate are presented in the order in which they reigned. This includes both Eastern and Western emperors for those periods where the empire was divided, and each one is illustrated. A useful glossary of technical terms is also provided.

Mario Bartolini is a retired political analyst and officer in the Canadian army reserve, with a long-held interest in Roman military history. He has a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in political history from the Université de Sherbrooke, Canada, and a second master’s degree in war studies, obtained at the Royal Military College of Canada. 

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For a Few Dollars More released in Italy

Second in Spaghetti Western trilogy

The poncho-wearing Clint Eastwood became one
of the Western genre's most famous characters

The movie For a Few Dollars More, the second in what became known as the Dollars Trilogy of Spaghetti Westerns, was released for public viewing in Italy on this day in 1965.

Directed by Sergio Leone and starring Clint Eastwood as the Man with No Name, the film followed the unexpected success of the low-budget feature A Fistful of Dollars, released 15 months earlier, which overcame poor initial reviews to become, for a time, the biggest-grossing movie in Italian cinema history.

Released for Italian audiences as Per Qualche Dollaro in Più, the follow-up proved even more commercially successful than its predecessor. By 1967, it had displaced A Fistful of Dollars as the highest-grossing Italian production, generating 3.1 billion lire ($5 million) in ticket sales from more than 14 and a half million admissions.

Eastwood, who had been little known outside America before A Fistful of Dollars catapulted him to international fame, had been paid a reputed sum of just $15,000 for his role in the original film, from a production budget of only $200,000.

This time Leone had more money at his disposal after teaming up with Italian producer Alberto Grimaldi and Eastwood received $50,000, although co-star Lee Van Cleef, given the part of a rival bounty hunter after Charles Bronson turned the role down, was paid a rather more modest $17,000.

One of the original posters
advertising the film in Italy

As with A Fistful of Dollars, the lead villain in For a Few Dollars More was played by Gian Maria Volonté, who was to become one of Italy’s most celebrated movie actors, famous for portraying memorable but neurotic characters in high-profile social dramas, usually with a political message. Volonté always insisted he took the Dollars roles only for the money.

Some critics were again derisive, dismissing the theme as corny, others accusing the director of glorifying violence and murder, yet For a Few Dollars More transfixed audiences with a gripping storyline, stunning cinematography, and powerful performances, as well as another brilliant musical score by Leone’s former school friend, the great Ennio Morricone.

The central plotline revolves around the rivalry between Eastwood’s character, on this occasion known as Manco, and Van Cleef’s former army officer, Colonel Douglas Mortimer, a fellow bounty hunter, with Volonté as a cold-blooded bank robber known as El Indio, who is just out of prison with a price on his head.

In common with the original, the film was shot on location in Spain rather than Italy. The original takes were all recorded without sound. Voices, sound effects and the musical score were all added later.

Leone completed the trilogy the following year with The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, which teamed Eastwood again with Lee Van Cleef but with Eli Wallach taking over from Volonté as the chief villain.

The budget this time was $1.2 million and box office revenue worldwide was almost as much as the first two parts of the trilogy combined.  Eastwood and Leone’s careers went in opposite directions but both enjoyed considerable success.

Leone scored another huge western hit with Once Upon a Time in the West in 1968 and, despite turning down the chance to direct The Godfather, directed a great gangster epic of his own in 1984, with Once Upon a Time in America. Sadly, he died of a heart attack in 1989 at the age of 60.

Eastwood went on to enjoy countless box office successes as an actor before becoming an Oscar-winning director, remaining active even into his 90s.

The arches of the Palazzo della Civiltà
Italiana echo those of the Colosseum 

Travel tip:

Sergio Leone, born in Rome, died there in 1989 when he suffered a fatal heart attack in the villa he used to entertain friends in the city’s EUR district, the complex to the south of central Rome that was originally developed to host the 1942 World's Fair - the Esposizione Universale Roma - which was cancelled because of the Second World War.  Mussolini’s modern city within a city was designed by a team of prominent architects, headed by Marcello Piacentini and including Giovanni Michelucci. The designs combined classical Roman elements with Italian Rationalism in a simplified neoclassicism that came to be known as Fascist architecture.  The Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana, which has become known as the “square colosseum”, is regarded as the building which is the most symbolic of EUR. Designed by Giovanni Guerrini, Ernesto La Padula, and Mario Romano, it draws inspiration from the Colosseum with its rows of arches, while its square shape and stark whiteness are reminiscent of metaphysical art.

The historic entrance to the Cinecitta film studios
in Rome, in its heyday the largest in Europe

Travel tip:

The Italian film industry for many years revolved around Cinecittà, the Rome film studio that is the largest in Europe, spreading over an area of 100 acres with  22 stages and 300 dressing rooms. Situated six miles south of the city centre, like EUR it was built during the Fascist era under the personal direction of Mussolini. The studios were bombed by the Allies in the Second World War but were rebuilt and used again in the 1950s for large productions, such as Ben Hur. These days a range of productions, from television drama to music videos, are filmed there. The complex contains a permanent exhibition about the history of the studio, within which a special hall is devoted to the work of Sergio Leone, who worked at Cinecittà in the early stage of his career as an assistant director on several large-scale international productions, notably Quo Vadis (1951) and Ben-Hur (1959).

Also on this day: 

39: The birth of Roman emperor Titus

1572: The death of architect Galeazzo Alessi 

1962: The birth of politician Alessandra Mussolini

1991: The birth of tennis star Camila Georgi

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