19 February

Massimo Troisi – actor, writer and director

Tragic star died hours after completing finest work

Massimo Troisi, the comic actor, writer and director who suffered a fatal heart attack in 1994 only 12 hours after shooting finished on his greatest movie, was born on this day in 1953 in a suburb of Naples.  Troisi co-directed and starred in Il Postino, which won an Oscar for best soundtrack after being nominated in five categories, the most nominations in Academy Award history for an Italian film.  He also wrote much of the screenplay for the movie, based on a novel, Burning Patience, by the Chilean author Antonio Skármeta, which tells the story of a Chilean poet exiled on an Italian island and his friendship with a postman whose round consists only of the poet’s isolated house.  Plagued by heart problems for much of his life, the result of several bouts of rheumatic fever when he was a child, Troisi was told just before shooting was due to begin that he needed an urgent transplant operation.  However, he was so committed to the project, a joint enterprise with his friend, the British director Michael Radford, he decided to postpone his surgery.  He was so ill that he collapsed on set on the third day but recovered to continue.  Read more…

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Vittorio Grigolo - opera singer

Tenor courted public popularity as way to land 'serious' roles

The operatic tenor Vittorio Grigolo was born on this day in 1977 in Arezzo in Tuscany.  Grigolo has performed at many of the world's leading opera houses and recently starred in Werther by Jules Massenet at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.  Yet he has achieved fame as a serious performer after first releasing an album of popular songs and using reality TV shows to put himself in the public eye.  Brought up in Rome, Grigolo was a child prodigy who began to sing at the age of four, his love for music inspired by his father, who liked the family house to be filled with the sound of opera arias.  He won a place at the prestigious Sistine Chapel Choir School by the time he was nine and at 13 appeared on the same stage as the opera legend Luciano Pavarotti as the shepherd boy in Giacomo Puccini's Tosca at the Rome Opera House.  It earned him the nickname Il Pavarottino - the little Pavarotti.  Grigolo's progress continued to be rapid.  At 18 he joined the Vienna Opera Company and became the youngest tenor to perform at Teatro alla Scala in Milan at the age of 23.  But in the years that followed, he felt his career reached a plateau. Read more…

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Orazio Vecchi – composer

Late Renaissance church musician wrote madrigal comedies to entertain audiences

Orazio Vecchi, who is regarded as a pioneer of dramatic music because of his innovative madrigal comedies, died on this day in 1605 in the city of Modena, in the Emilia-Romagna region.  His most famous composition, L’Amfiparnaso, was always intended as music for entertainment. It was a set of 15 pieces that were dramatic in nature, although they were not meant for the stage.  Vecchi is known to have been baptised in December 1550 in Modena. He was educated  at a Benedictine monastery and took holy orders.  He knew composers of the Venetian school, such as Giovanni Gabrieli, and he composed himself in the form of sacred music, such as masses and motets, as well as canzonette and madrigals for entertainment.  Vecchi served as maestro di cappella at the cathedral of Salò and as choirmaster at the cathedral of Reggio Emilia. He then became a canon at Correggio, where he was able to compose prolific amounts of music during his time there, before moving back to Modena, where he served as a priest and also had charge of the choir.  In 1594 his madrigal comedy, L’Amfiparnaso, was premiered at Modena and it was published in an illustrated edition in 1597. Read more…

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Luigi Boccherini – musician

Composer gave the cello prominence in his charming quintets

Cellist and composer Luigi Rodolfo Boccherini was born on this day in 1743 in Lucca in Tuscany.  Boccherini is particularly known for a minuet from his String Quintet in E, which became popular after its use by characters posing as musicians in the 1955 film, The Ladykillers, which starred Alec Guinness and Peter Sellers.  Though his works became neglected after his death in 1805 they enjoyed a revival after the Boccherini Quintet, which was formed in Rome, started performing them in the 1950s.  Boccherini’s father was himself a cellist and double bass player and sent the young Luigi to study in Rome.  In 1757 they went to Vienna together where the court employed them both as musicians in the Imperial Theatre orchestra.  In 1764 Luigi obtained a permanent position back in Lucca, playing in both the church and theatre orchestras.  But after the death of his father he moved to Paris where some of his early compositions were published.  Boccherini later moved to Spain, where for a time he enjoyed the patronage of the Royal family. But one day King Charles III of Spain ordered him to change a passage of his music.   Read more…

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Domenico Grimani - cardinal and art collector

Owned works by Da Vinci, Titian and Raphael among others

The Venetian cardinal Domenico Grimani, whose vast art collection now forms part of the Museo d'Antichità in the Doge's Palace in Venice, was born on this day in 1461.  Grimani acquired works among others by Italian Renaissance masters such as Leonardo da Vinci, Giorgione, Titian and Raphael, as well as by Hans Memling and Hieronymus Bosch, two of the great Early Netherlandish painters of the 15th century.  He also owned the illustrated manuscript that became known as the Grimani Breviary, produced in Ghent and Bruges between 1510 and 1520, which is considered one of the most important  works of Flemish art from the Renaissance period.  Gerard David, Gerard Horenbout, Simon Bening and other illustrators contributed to the work, which was acquired by Grimani for 500 gold ducats, and subsequently bequeathed to the Venetian Republic.  It is now housed in the Biblioteca Marciana, opposite the Doge’s Palace.  Domenico also began the collection of Greek and Roman antiquities that was subsequently expanded by his nephew, Giovanni, and now kept in the Palazzo Grimani museum, near Campo Santa Maria Formosa.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: The Postman – A Novel, by Antonio Skármeta, translated by Katherine Silver

The unforgettable inspiration for the Academy Award–winning Il Postino, this classic novel established Antonio Skármeta’s reputation as “one of the most representative authors of the post-boom generation in contemporary Latin American letters” (Christian Science Monitor). Boisterously funny and passionate, The Postman - originally published as Burning Patience - tells of young love ignited by the poetry of Pablo Neruda. Set in the colourful, ebullient years preceding the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile, the book has been translated into around 25 languages around the world.

Antonio Skármeta is a Chilean writer, scriptwriter and director descending from Croatian immigrants from the Adriatic island of Brač, Dalmatia. He was awarded Chile's National Literature Prize in 2014.  Katherine Silver is a renowned, award-winning literary translator. She is the former director of the Banff International Literary Translation Centre. She lives in Northern California.

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18 February

NEW - Alessandro Varaldo – crime writer and playwright

The first Italian author of gialli to be accepted by Mondadori

Alessandro Varaldo, the author credited with creating the first fictional Italian police officer, died on this day in 1953 in Rome. His character, the police commissario Ascanio Bonichi, made his first appearance in Varaldo’s novel Il sette bello - the name by which Italians refer to the seven of diamonds in a deck of cards - which was published by Mondadori in 1931. The author had been approached by Arnaldo Mondadori himself and encouraged to create a novel in Italian to appeal to the readers who were already eagerly buying their gialli, the Italian translations of English, American and French detective novels that the firm published.  Gialli take their name from the distinctive yellow - giallo in Italian - covers used by Mondadori for their crime novels in the 1930s.  Varaldo was born in Ventimiglia in Liguria in 1873 and grew up to become a journalist, novelist and playwright. From 1910 onwards he wrote novels, short stories and plays and contributed to newspapers such as Gazzetta del Popolo and Il Caffaro.  He was president of the Italian Society of Authors and Publishers between 1920 and 1928 and director of the Academy of Dramatic Art in Milan from 1943.  Read more…

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Blessed Fra Angelico – painter

Talented Friar became patron of Catholic artists

The early Renaissance painter who became known as Fra Angelico died on this day in 1455 in Rome.  Fra Angelico is regarded as one of the greatest painters of the 15th century, whose works reflected his serene religious attitude.   He painted many altarpieces and frescoes for the Church and Priory of San Marco in Florence where he lived for about nine years.   In 1982, more than 500 years after his death, Fra Angelico was beatified by Pope John Paul II in recognition of the holiness of his life. In 1984, Pope John Paul II declared him ‘patron of Catholic artists’.  The artist was born Guido di Pietro at Rupecanina near Fiesole, just outside Florence, towards the end of the 14th century.  The earliest recorded document concerning him dates from 1417 when he joined a religious confraternity at the Carmine Church and it reveals that he was already a painter.  The first record of him as a Friar is dated 1423 and shows him to have been a member of the Dominican order.  It is believed his first paintings were an altarpiece and a painted screen for the Carthusian Monastery in Florence, but these no longer exist.  Read more…

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Francesco Redi - biologist and poet

Renaissance scholar who debunked scientific myths

The physician Francesco Redi, famous for challenging a centuries-old belief that certain living things arose through spontaneous generation rather than any reproductive process involving parent organisms, was born on this day in 1626 in Arezzo, Tuscany.  Redi, who enjoyed literary success alongside his work in experimental biology, devoted much of his scientific life to dismantling some of the widely held beliefs in his field that he was sure were incorrect.  The most famous of these was that the maggots frequently discovered in rotting meat occurred spontaneously as a product of the decaying flesh. In order to show that this was a myth, Redi conducted a number of experiments in 1668 involving sets of jars containing dead fish and raw pieces of different meats. In the first, he sealed three of six jars and left the other three open. In the second, he placed raw meat in three jars, plugging one with a cork stopper, placing gauze over the other and leaving the third open.  After a period of time, the flesh in the open jars contained maggots, but in the sealed jars did not.  In the gauze-covered jars, maggots appeared on the surface of the gauze but not in the meat.  Read more…

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Roberto Baggio - football icon

Azzurri star regarded as Italy's greatest player

The footballer Roberto Baggio, regarded by fans in Italy and around the world as one of the game's greatest players, was born on this day in 1967 in Caldogno, a small town situated about 10km (6 miles) north of Vicenza in the Veneto.  Baggio's career spanned 22 years, most of them spent at the highest level, with Fiorentina, Juventus, Bologna, both Milan clubs and, finally, Brescia, winning the Serie A title twice, the Coppa Italia and the UEFA Cup.  He played in three World Cups - in 1990, 1994 and 1998 - and achieved the unique distinction among Italian players of scoring at all three.  He scored 318 goals all told, the first Italian for 50 years to top 300 in his career.  Yet he spent almost the whole of his active playing days battling against injury.  Over the course of his career, he had six knee operations, four on his right knee and two on the left, and often could play only with the help of painkillers.  His fans believe that without his injuries, Baggio would have been placed in the same bracket as Pele, Diego Maradona and Lionel Messi as the best players in history.  Italy's most famous football journalist, the late Gianni Brera, said Baggio was the greatest Italian player he ever saw, better than both Giuseppe Meazza and Gianni Rivera.  Read more…

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Michelangelo – Renaissance painter and sculptor

‘Greatest artist of all time’ left amazing legacy of work

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni - generally known simply as Michelangelo - died on this day in 1564 in Rome.   His death came three weeks before his 89th birthday while he was still working on his last sculpture, the Rondanini Pietà, a version of the Virgin Mary with the body of the dead Christ.  Michelangelo had been a sculptor, painter, architect and poet who had exerted an enormous influence on the development of art. During his lifetime he was considered to be the greatest living artist and he is now considered to be one of the greatest - if not the greatest - artists of all time.  Michelangelo was born in 1475 in the small town of Caprese near Arezzo in Tuscany, which is now known as Caprese Michelangelo.  He was sent to Florence to be educated but preferred to spend his time with painters, trying to copy the pictures in the churches, rather than be at school.  At the age of 13 he was apprenticed to the artist Ghirlandaio and was asked to produce sculptures for Lorenzo dè Medici.  Eventually he moved to Rome where he was commissioned to carve his first Pietà, a sculpture showing the Virgin Mary grieving over the dead body of Jesus.  Read more…

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Roberta Vinci - tennis champion

Won five Grand Slam doubles titles with partner Sara Errani

The tennis player Roberta Vinci, one half of the most successful Italian women’s doubles partnerships of all time and one of only four Italian women to rank in the world’s top 10 at singles, was born on this day in 1983 in the major port city of Taranto in Puglia.  Vinci and partner Sara Errani reached the women’s doubles final at eight Grand Slam tournaments between 2012 and 2014, winning five of them.  They were the champions at the French Open and United States Open in 2012 and the Australian Open in 2013 and again in 2014. When they won the Wimbledon title in 2014 they became one of only five women’s doubles partnerships to complete a career Grand Slam of all the four majors.  The pair, who reached No 1 in the world rankings in 2012, unexpectedly ended their five-year partnership in 2015, after which Vinci focussed on singles.  Vinci’s finest achievement in singles came at the US Open in 2015, when she defeated world No 1 Serena Williams in the semi-finals before facing her compatriot and childhood friend Flavia Pennetta in the final, the first in a Grand Slam in the open era to pit one Italian against another.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Politics and Society in Italian Crime Fiction: An Historical Overview Paperback, by Barbara Pezzotti 

This is the first book in English that comprehensively spans the history of the crime genre in Italy from the origins to the most recent writers. By taking as its point of departure the privileged relationship between the detective novel and its social setting, this book is a wide-ranging examination of the way in which Italian crime fiction has become a means to articulate the social and political changes of the country. Politics and Society in Italian Crime Fiction concentrates in particular on famous writers, such as Augusto de Angelis (1888-1944), Leonardo Sciascia (1921-1989), Giorgio Scerbanenco (1911-1969), Loriano Macchiavelli (b. 1934), Andrea Camilleri (b. 1925), Massimo Carlotto (b. 1956),and Marcello Fois (b. 1960) thus covering the history of Italian crime fiction from its origins to the 2000s. While it is widely recognised that Italy's popular culture is in the frontline in tackling everyday problems and conflicts, crime fiction has seldom been studied in its political and social aspects. Through the analysis of writers belonging to different and crucial periods of Italy's history, this book articulates the different ways in which individual authors exploit the genre to reflect the social transformations and dysfunctions of contemporary Italy.

Barbara Pezzotti, PhD (Victoria University of Wellington, NZ), teaches Italian Studies at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. She is also an honorary research associate of the Australasian Centre for Italian Studies (ACIS). Resident in New Zealand, she is the author of several books about Italian crime fiction.

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Alessandro Varaldo – crime writer and playwright

The first Italian author of gialli to be accepted by Mondadori

Varaldo's Il sette bello was the
first giallo by an Italian

Alessandro Varaldo, the author credited with creating the first fictional Italian police officer, died on this day in 1953 in Rome.

His character, the police commissario Ascanio Bonichi, made his first appearance in Varaldo’s novel Il sette bello - the name by which Italians refer to the seven of diamonds in a deck of cards - which was published by Mondadori in 1931.

The author had been approached by Arnaldo Mondadori himself and encouraged to create a novel in Italian to appeal to the readers who were already eagerly buying their gialli, the Italian translations of English, American and French detective novels that the firm published.

Gialli take their name from the distinctive yellow - giallo in Italian - covers used by Mondadori for their crime novels in the 1930s. 

Varaldo was born in Ventimiglia in Liguria in 1873 and grew up to become a journalist, novelist and playwright. From 1910 onwards he wrote novels, short stories and plays and contributed to newspapers such as Gazzetta del Popolo and Il Caffaro. 

He was president of the Italian Society of Authors and Publishers between 1920 and 1928 and director of the Academy of Dramatic Art in Milan from 1943.

In 1931, the Italian Government had brought in measures to try to curb the number of translated books by foreign authors being published, which encouraged Varaldo, along with other authors at the time, to try his hand at the genre.

Varaldo, who was also a journalist, wrote
seven other gialli in addition to Il sette bello

Esteemed for the quality of his writing, which Mondadori considered essential for the books they published, Varaldo became the first Italian author accepted into Mondadori’s series of gialli, and he went on to write eight mysteries for them. He was able to reconcile the traditionally Anglo-Saxon genre of crime fiction with Fascist values in order to comply with the dictates of the Mussolini regime.

He portrayed Bonichi as a down to earth character from the countryside who solved his cases by chance, rather than using the more scientific methods employed by other fictional detectives such as Sherlock Holmes.

His novels were set in Rome before the war and described the city’s Baroque and neo-Baroque buildings, which formed a theatrical background during the night and at dawn, when the silhouette of a figure could be illuminated. Crime fiction experts think this evoked an irretrievable past for his readers to escape to.

Varaldo wrote a total of eight gialli between 1931 and 1938 and he also wrote some drammi gialli -detective plays - before his death.

Travel tip: 

Ventimiglia, where Alessandro Varaldo was born, is the last major town on the Italian riviera before the border with France, which is about 6km (3.7 miles) away. Situated about 130km (81 miles) west of the Ligurian capital Genoa, it is not a well known as nearby Sanremo but has plenty going for it, nonetheless, its charm enhanced by the pastel colours of its houses. The town is divided in two by the Roia river, which separates the newer lower town from the old upper town - Ventimiglia Alta - which sits on a hill encircled by walls. Ancient buildings and churches dating back to the 10th century make the climb worthwhile, as does the spectacular view over the Ligurian sea. The mediaeval old town is also home to the Biblioteca Civica Aprosiana - founded by the writer and Augustan monk Angelico Aprosio in 1648 - has one of the largest collections of 17th century manuscripts and books in Italy.  The elegant lower town is best known for the massive open-air market that takes place in the beautiful setting of the lungomare - the promenade - every Friday. There are a smaller number of stalls open on the other days of the week. For beach lovers, the Spiaggia dei Balzi Rossi and the Spiaggia delle Calandre are only a short walk from the centre.

Travel tip:

The Mondadori publishing house, whose Gialli Mondadori broke new ground in publishing in Italy as the first book series to feature detective and crime stories alone, was launched in Ostiglia, an historical town about 160 km (99 miles) southeast of Milan and about 30 km (19 miles) from Mantua. In Roman times, when it was called Hostilia, its location on the Via Claudia Augusta Padana saw it become a trade hub linking Emilia with northern Europe.  In the Middle Ages it was a stronghold of Verona before being acquired in turn by the Scaliger, Visconti and Gonzaga families. The Palazzina Mondadori, an elegant Art Nouveau-style building that was the first Arnoldo printing house, hosts Arnoldo Mondadori’s private library consisting of about 1,000 books, many signed by the authors. Mondadori relocated to Milan in 1929 and now boasts a modern headquarters in the suburb of Segrate, to the east of the centre.

More reading:

How Giorgio Mondadori helped launch the newspaper La Repubblica

Why Augusto De Angelis is regarded as the 'father of Italian crime fiction'

The Naples bank worker who became a leading modern crime writer

Also on this day:

1455: The birth of painter Fra Angelico

1564: The death of painter and sculptor Michelangelo

1626: The birth of biologist Francesco Redi

1967: The birth of footballer Roberto Baggio

1983: The birth of tennis champion Roberta Vinci

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17 February

Arcangelo Corelli – musician

Baroque composer had a major influence on the development of music

Violinist and composer Arcangelo Corelli was born on this day in 1653 at Fusignano, a small town near Ravenna.   He is remembered for his influence on the development of violin style and for his use of the genres of sonata and concerto. Corelli’s 12 Concerti Grossi established the concerto grosso as a popular medium of composition.  Named Arcangelo after his father, who died a few weeks before his birth, he studied music with the curate of a neighbouring village before going to the nearby towns of Faenza and Lugo to learn musical theory.  Corelli later studied with Giovanni Benvenuti, who was a violinist at San Petronio in Bologna and in 1670 he started at the Philharmonic Academy in Bologna.  He moved on to Rome where to begin with he played the violin at a theatre. It is known that by 1677 he had written his first composition, a Sonata for Violin and Lute.  By 1675 Corelli was third violinist in the orchestra of the chapel of San Luigi dei Francesi and by the following year he had become second violinist. In 1681 his 12 Trio Sonatas for two violins and a cello were published and the following year he became first violinist in the San Luigi dei Francesi orchestra.  Read more…

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Giordano Bruno - 'martyr of science'

Dominican friar condemned as a heretic

Giordano Bruno, a Dominican friar, philosopher and cosmological theorist who challenged orthodox Christian beliefs in the 16th century, died on this day in 1600 when he was burned at the stake after being found guilty of heresy.  The principal crimes for which he was tried by the Roman Inquisition were the denial of several core Catholic doctrines.  Bruno challenged the divinity of Christ, the virginity of Mary, and the transubstantiation - the idea that Eucharistic offering of bread and wine in Mass becomes the body and blood of Christ.  He also questioned the idea of God as a holy trinity of divine persons - the Father, the Son (Jesus) and the Holy Spirit.  His own belief was closer to pantheism, which contends that a God is an all-encompassing divine presence rather than existing in some personal form with human traits.  This idea formed part of his cosmological theory, in which he supported the idea that everything in the universe is made of tiny particles (atoms) and that God exists in all of these particles.  Yet this was in contradiction of the established Catholic wisdom, as was his support for the idea advanced by the Renaissance astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus that Earth revolves around the sun, rather than the other way round.  Read more…

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Giovanni Pacini – opera composer

Works of overshadowed musician have enjoyed recent revival

Composer Giovanni Pacini, who wrote operas in the early part of the 19th century to suit the voices of the great singers of the period, was born on this day in 1796 in Catania in Sicily.  Pacini began his formal music studies at the age of 12, when he was sent by his father, the opera singer Luigi Pacini, to study voice in Bologna with castrato singer and composer, Luigi Marchesi.  He soon switched his focus to composing and wrote an opera, La sposa fedele - The Faithful Bride. It premiered in Venice in 1818 and, for its revival the following year, Pacini provided a new aria, to be sung specifically by the soprano Giuditta Pasta.  By the mid 1820s he had become a leading opera composer, having produced many successful serious and comic works.  Pacini’s 1824 work Alessandro nelle Indie - Alexander in the Indies - was a successful serious opera based on Andrea Leone Tottola’s updating of a text by librettist Pietro Metastasio.  But by the mid 1830s, Pacini had withdrawn from operatic activity after he found his operas eclipsed by those of Gaetano Donizetti and Vincenzo Bellini.  He settled in Tuscany, where his father had been born.  Read more…

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Raffaele ‘Raf’ Vallone – actor

Movie star who had four careers

Raffaele Vallone, the stage and screen actor who was born on this day in 1916 in Tropea, Calabria, was remarkable for having embarked on three starkly different career paths even before he made his acting debut.  Usually known as Raf, he grew up from the age of two in Turin, where his father, an ambitious young lawyer, had relocated to set up a legal practice.  A natural athlete, he was a fine footballer – so good, in fact, that at the age of 14 he was snapped up by Torino FC, who made him an apprentice professional.  Compared with the average working man, he was handsomely paid as a footballer, and he won a medal as part of the Torino team crowned Coppa Italia winners in 1936.  Yet he quickly became bored with football and enrolled at Turin University, where he studied Law and Philosophy with a view to joining his father’s firm.  Ultimately, he baulked at the idea of becoming a lawyer, too, and instead joined the staff of the left-wing daily newspaper L’Unità, where he rose quickly to be head of the culture pages, at the same time establishing himself as a drama and film critic for the Turin daily La Stampa.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Baroque Music in Focus: Second Edition, by Hugh Benham

Baroque Music in Focus provides a detailed yet concise look into this fascinating and vitally important period of music history, and explores Baroque music and composers in their wider social and historical context. This second edition has been fully revised and updated to keep abreast of the latest scholarship, and now includes colour images throughout, and a glossary and index. In addition there are new, expanded sections on the major genres and works of the Baroque era, as well as in-depth examinations of the lives and careers of the two greatest Baroque composers, Johann Sebastian Bach and Georg Frideric Handel. This focus guide is intended to provide a solid foundation for pupils of all levels who are studying Baroque music, as well as general readers with an interest in the topic. It suggests listening and viewing material to complement the main topics within the book, and is an ideal resource for those wanting to explore the many aspects of Baroque music.

Hugh Benham is a musician, composer and academic based in Chandler's Ford, Hampshire. His academic and educational books cover a wide range of musical topics.

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