14 September

Renzo Piano – architect

Designer of innovative buildings is now an Italian senator

Award-winning architect Renzo Piano was born on this day in 1937 in Genoa.  Piano is well-known for his high-tech designs for public spaces and is particularly famous for the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, which he worked on in collaboration with the British architect, Richard Rogers, and the Shard in London.  Among the many awards and prizes Piano has received for his work are the Japan Art Association’s Praemium Imperiale prize for architecture in 1995, the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1998 and the American Institute of Architects Gold Medal in 2008.  Piano was born into a family of builders and graduated from the Polytechnic in Milan in 1964. He completed his first building, the IPE factory in Genoa, in 1968 with a roof of steel and reinforced polyester.  He worked with a variety of architects, including his father, Carlo Piano, until he established a partnership with Rogers, which lasted from 1971-1977.  They made the Centre Georges Pompidou look like an urban machine with their innovative design and it immediately gained the attention of the international architectural community.  Read more…

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Dante Alighieri – poet

Famous son of Florence remains in exile

Dante Alighieri, an important poet during the late Middle Ages, died on this day in 1321 in Ravenna in Emilia-Romagna.  Dante’s Divine Comedy is considered to be the greatest literary work written in Italian and has been acclaimed all over the world.  In the 13th century most poetry was written in Latin, but Dante wrote in the Tuscan dialect, which made his work more accessible to ordinary people.  Writers who came later, such as Petrarch and Boccaccio, followed this trend.  Therefore Dante can be said to have played an instrumental role in establishing the national language of Italy.  His depictions of Hell, Purgatory and Heaven in the Divine Comedy later influenced the works of John Milton, Geoffrey Chaucer and Lord Alfred Tennyson, among many others.  Dante was also the first poet to use the interlocking three-line rhyme scheme, terza rima.  Dante was born around 1265 in Florence into a family loyal to the Guelphs. By the time he was 12 he had been promised in marriage to Gemma di Manetto Donati, the daughter of a member of a powerful, local family.  He had already fallen in love with Beatrice Portinari, whom he first met when he was only nine.  Read more…

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Tiziano Terzani - journalist

Asia correspondent who covered wars in Vietnam and Cambodia

The journalist and author Tiziano Terzani, who spent much of his working life in China, Japan and Southeast Asia and whose writing received critical acclaim both in his native Italy and elsewhere, was born on this day in 1938 in Florence.  He worked for more than 30 years for the German news magazine Der Spiegel, who took him on as Asia Correspondent in 1971, based in Singapore.  Although he wrote for other publications, including the Italian newspapers Corriere della Sera and La Repubblica, it was Der Spiegel who allowed him the freedom he craved. To a large extent he created his own news agenda but in doing so offered a unique slant on the major stories.  He was one of only a handful of western journalists who remained in Vietnam after the liberation of Saigon by the Viet Cong in 1975 and two years later, despite threats to his life, he reported from Phnom Penh in Cambodia after its capture by the Khmer Rouge.  He lived at different times in Beijing, Tokyo, Singapore, Hong Kong, Bangkok and New Delhi. His stay in China came to an end when he was arrested and expelled in 1984 for "counter-revolutionary activities".  Read more…

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Vittorio Gui – composer and conductor

Precise and sensitive musician enjoyed a long and distinguished career

Internationally renowned orchestra conductor Vittorio Gui was born on this day in 1885 in Rome.  Gui composed his own operas, while travelling around Italy and Europe conducting the music of other composers. He spent many years conducting in Britain and served as the musical director of the Glyndebourne Festival for 12 years.  He was taught to play the piano by his mother when he was a young child. He graduated in Humanities at the University of Rome and then studied composition at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia.  The premiere of his opera, David, took place in Rome in 1907. He made his professional conducting debut at the Teatro Adriano in Rome in the same year, having been brought in as a substitute to lead Ponchielli’s La Gioconda.  This led to Gui being invited to conduct in Rome and Turin. Arturo Toscanini then invited him to conduct Salome by Richard Strauss as the season opener at La Scala in Milan in 1923.  He conducted at the Teatro Regio in Turin between 1925 and 1927 and premiered his own fairytale opera, Fata Malerba, there.  Gui founded the Orchestra Stabile in Florence and developed the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino festival. Read more…

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Book of the Day: Piano, by Philip Jodidio

While some architects have a signature style, Renzo Piano seeks to apply coherent ideas to extraordinarily different projects. His buildings impress as much for their individual impact as for their diversity of scale, material, and form.  Piano rose to international prominence with his codesign of the Pompidou Center in Paris, described by The New York Times as a building that “turned the architecture world upside down.” Since then, he has continued to craft many high-profile cultural spaces, including the Modern Wing of the Art Institute of Chicago; the Morgan Library Renovation and Expansion in New York; and, most recently, the Whitney Museum of American Art, an asymmetric nine-story structure in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District with both indoor and outdoor galleries. In New York and London, the Renzo touch has also transformed the skyline with the towers of the New York Times Building and the Shard, the tallest building in the European Union.  Piano is an essential introduction that travels from Osaka, Japan, to Bern, Switzerland, and through many cities, structures, and islands in between, to explore the staggering scope of the Renzo Piano repertoire. From the “inside-out” Pompidou to the airy shells of the Tjibaou Cultural Center in Nouméa, New Caledonia, this is a thrilling journey through the beauty of architecture, where, in Piano’s own words, “each time, it is like life starting all over again.”

Philip Jodidio studied art history and economics at Harvard and edited Connaissance des Arts for over 20 years. His books include the Homes for Our Time series for publishers Taschen and monographs on numerous major architects, including Norman Foster, Tadao Ando, Jean Nouvel, and Zaha Hadid.

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13 September

Fabio Cannavaro - World Cup winner

Defender captained azzurri to 2006 triumph

The footballer and coach Fabio Cannavaro, who was captain of the Italy team that won the 2006 World Cup in Germany, was born on this day in 1973 in Naples.  In a hugely successful playing career, the central defender was part of the excellent Parma team that won the UEFA Cup and the Coppa Italia under coach Alberto Malesani in the late 1990s, winning another Coppa Italia in 2002 with Pietro Carmignani in charge.  But his biggest glories were to come after he left Italy for Spain to play for Real Madrid under the Italian coach Fabio Capello, winning the La Liga title twice in 2006 and 2007.  His 136 appearances for the azzurri made him the most capped outfield player in the history of the Italian national team (only goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon has more caps in total) and the feat of winning La Liga and the World Cup in the same year helped him win the coveted Ballon d’Or, awarded annually by the magazine France Football to the player judged to be the best in Europe. He is only the third defender to be given the award, joining the company of Franz Beckenbauer and Matthias Sammer.  Read more…

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Saverio Bettinelli – writer

Jesuit scholar and poet was unimpressed with Dante

Poet and literary critic Saverio Bettinelli, who had the temerity to criticise Dante in his writing, died at the age of 90 on this day in 1808 in Mantua.  Bettinelli had entered the Jesuit Order at the age of 20 and went on to become known as a dramatist, poet and literary critic, who also taught rhetoric in various Italian cities.  In 1758 he travelled through Italy and Germany and met the French writers Voltaire and Rousseau.  Bettinelli taught literature from 1739 to 1744 at Brescia, where he formed an academy with other scholars. He became a professor of rhetoric in Venice and was made superintendent of the College of Nobles at Parma in 1751, where he was in charge of the study of poetry and history and theatrical entertainment.  After travelling to Germany, Strasbourg and Nancy, he returned to Italy, taking with him two young relatives of the Prince of Hohenlohe, who had entrusted him with their education. He took the eldest of his pupils with him to France, where he wrote his famous Lettere dieci di Virgilio agli Arcadi, which were published in Venice.  He also wrote a collection of poems, Versi sciolti, and some tragedies for the Jesuit theatre.  Read more…

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Francesco Manelli – Baroque composer

Theorbo player staged the world’s first public opera

Musician and opera composer Francesco Manelli, who is remembered for the important contribution he made to bringing commercial opera to Venice, was born on this day in 1595 in Tivoli in Lazio.  Manelli (sometimes spelt Mannelli) was also a skilled player of the theorbo, which is a plucked string instrument belonging to the lute family that has a very long neck.  From the age of ten, Manelli used to sing in Tivoli's Duomo, the Basilica Cattedrale di San Lorenzo Martire, and he was taught music by the various maestri di cappella working there at that time.  Manelli moved to Rome with the intention of studying for a career in the church, but after meeting and marrying a singer, Maddalena, he decided to dedicate himself exclusively to music.  In 1627, Manelli went back to Tivoli where he himself became a maestro di cappella at the Duomo, a post he held for two years. Then he returned to Rome to take up the post of maestro di cappella at the church of Santa Maria della Consolazione.  After going to Padua, where his wife sang in the opera Ermiona, Manelli and his family settled in Venice in order to be close to his patron.  Read more…

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Andrea Mantegna – artist

Genius led the way with his use of perspective

The painter Andrea Mantegna died on this day in 1506 in Mantua.  He had become famous for his religious paintings, such as St Sebastian, which is now in the Louvre in Paris, and The Agony in the Garden, which is now in the National Gallery in London.  But his frescoes for the Bridal Chamber (Camera degli Sposi) at the Palazzo Ducale in Mantua - Mantova in Italian - were to influence many artists who followed him because of his innovative use of perspective.  Mantegna studied Roman antiquities for inspiration and was also an eminent engraver.  He was born near Padua - Padova - in about 1431 and apprenticed by the age of 11 to the painter, Francesco Squarcione, who had a fascination for ancient art and encouraged him to study fragments of Roman sculptures.  Mantegna was one of a large group of painters entrusted with decorating the Ovetari Chapel in the Church of the Eremitani in Padua.  Much of his work was lost when the Allied forces bombed Padua in 1944, but other early work by Mantegna can be seen in the Basilica of Sant’Antonio and in the Church of Santa Giustina in Padua.  The artist later came under the influence of Jacopo Bellini, the father of Giovanni and Gentile Bellini.  Read more…

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Girolamo Frescobaldi – composer

Organist was a ‘father of Italian music’

Girolamo Alessandro Frescobaldi, one of the first great masters of organ composition, was born on this day in 1583 in Ferrara.  Frescobaldi is famous for his instrumental works, many of which are compositions for the keyboard, but his canzone are of historical importance for the part they played in the development of pieces for small instrumental ensembles and he was to have a strong influence on the German Baroque school.  Frescobaldi began his career as organist at the church of Santa Maria in Trastevere in Rome in 1607. He travelled to the Netherlands the same year and published his first work, a book of madrigals, in Antwerp.  In 1608 he became the organist at St Peter’s Basilica in Rome and, except for a few years when he was court organist in Florence, he worked at St Peter’s until his death.  He married Orsola Travaglini in 1613 and they had five children.  Frescobaldi published 12 fantasie that are notable for their contrapuntal mastery.  In a collection of music published in 1626 he provides valuable information about performing his work. He writes in the preface: ‘Should the player find it tedious to play a piece right through he may choose such sections as he pleases provided only that he ends in the main key.’  Read more…

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Book of the Day: The Football Men: Up Close with the Giants of the Modern Game, by Simon Kuper

The great footballers and coaches are rarely glimpsed from up close. They shield themselves from the tabloids, hide their personalities behind professionalism, and in the words of the cliché, 'do their talking on the pitch'.  This book gets up close to them. The Football Men is not a series of celebrity profiles, and it doesn't attempt to unearth secrets in the players' private lives. Rather, it portrays these men as three-dimensional human beings. It describes their upbringings, the football cultures they grew up in, the way they play, and the baggage that they bring to their relationships at work. This multimillion-pound, multinational world is mostly inhabited by ordinary men. The profiles in this book, which include the Italian players, Paolo Maldini, Fabio Cannavaro and Gennaro Gattuso, are sometimes funny, but never breathless or sensational.  Some of the profiles in this book are based on interviews; others are the results of time the author spent with that person; sometimes the profile is a story of a country. All are fascinating and shed light on their subject to reveal things you wouldn't expect.  From one of the great sports writers of our time this is a penetrating and surprising collection of articles on the figures that have defined the modern sporting world.

Simon Kuper is an Anglo-French author and journalist, best known for his work at the Financial Times and as a football writer. He is the author of Football Against the Enemy (which won the William Hill Prize) and Ajax, The Dutch, The War (shortlisted for the William Hill Prize). 

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12 September

NEW - Eugenio Montale - poet and translator

Influential writer one of six Italians to win Nobel Prize in Literature

Eugenio Montale, who became one of the most influential Italian writers of the 20th century and was awarded a Nobel Prize in Literature in 1975, died on this day in 1981 in Milan at the age of 84.  Montale's most famous work is often considered to be his first, a collection of poems he published in 1925 under the title Ossi di seppia - Cuttlefish Bones. These poems established his use of stark imagery, his introspective tone and his fascination with themes such as desolation, alienation and mortality, and the search for elusive meaning in a fragmented world.  Later collections such as Le occasioni (1939) - The Occasions - and La bufera e altro (1956) - The Storm and Other Things - reinforced his reputation as one of Italian literature’s 20th century greats.  Montale was born in 1896 in a building overlooking the botanical gardens of the University of Genoa, a short distance from the city’s Piazza Principe railway station. His father, Domenico, was the co-owner of a chemical products company.  As a young man, he was dogged by ill health but obtained a qualification in accountancy and for eight years had ambitions to be an opera singer under the tuition of the baritone, Ernesto Sivori. Read more…

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Nazis free captive Mussolini

Extraordinary daring of Gran Sasso Raid

One of the most dramatic events of the Second World War in Italy took place on this day in 1943 when Benito Mussolini, the deposed and imprisoned Fascist dictator, was freed by the Germans.  The former leader was being held in a remote mountain ski resort when 12 gliders, each carrying paratroopers and SS officers, landed on the mountainside and took control of the hotel where Mussolini was being held.  They forced his guards to surrender before summoning a small aircraft to fly Mussolini to Rome, from where another plane flew him to Austria.  Even Winston Churchill, Britain's wartime prime minister, professed his admiration for the daring nature of the daylight rescue.  Known as the Gran Sasso Raid or Operation Oak, the rescue was ordered by Adolf Hitler himself after learning that Mussolini's government, in the shape of the Grand Fascist Council, had voted through a resolution that he be replaced as leader and that King Victor Emmanuel III had ensured that the resolution was successful by having the self-styled Duce arrested.  The Italian government by then had decided defeat in the War was inevitable.  Read more…

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Lorenzo II de’ Medici – Duke of Urbino

Short rule of the grandson of Lorenzo Il Magnifico

Lorenzo di Piero de’ Medici, Duke of Urbino, was born on this day in 1492 in Florence.  The grandson of Lorenzo the Magnificent, Lorenzo II ruled Florence from 1513 to 1519.  Niccolò Machiavelli addressed his work, The Prince, to Lorenzo II, advising him to accomplish the unification of Italy under Florentine rule by arming the whole nation and expelling its foreign invaders.  When Lorenzo was two years old, his father, who became known as Piero the Unfortunate, was driven out of Florence by Republicans with the help of the French.  The Papal-led Holy League, aided by the Spanish, finally defeated the rebels in 1512 and the Medici family was restored to Florence.  Lorenzo II’s uncle, Giuliano, ruled Florence for a year and then made way for his nephew. Another uncle, Pope Leo X, made Lorenzo the Duke of Urbino after expelling the legitimate ruler of the duchy, Francesco Maria della Rovere.  When Francesco Maria returned to Urbino he was welcomed by his subjects. Lorenzo II regained possession of the duchy only after a protracted war in which he was wounded. In 1519 Lorenzo II died at the age of just 26 and the duchy reverted to the della Rovere family.  Read more…

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Daniela Rocca – actress

Tragic star shunned after breakdown

The actress Daniela Rocca, who starred in the hit big-screen comedy Divorce, Italian Style, was born on this day in 1937 in Sicily.  The movie, in which she starred opposite Marcello Mastroianni, won an Academy Award for its writers and acclaim for former beauty queen Rocca, who revealed a notable acting talent.  Yet this zenith in her short career would in some ways also prove to be its nadir after she fell in love with the director, Pietro Germi.  The relationship she hoped for did not materialise and she subsequently suffered a mental breakdown, which had damaging consequences for her career and her life.  Born in Acireale, a coastal city in eastern Sicily in the shadow of the Mount Etna volcano, Rocca came from poor, working class roots but her looks became a passport to a new life. She entered and won the Miss Catania beauty contest before she was 16.  She subsequently entered Miss Italia, and although she did not win, her looks made an impression on the movie talent scouts who took a close interest in such events, on the lookout for potential starlets.  Rocca’s acting debut came in 1957 in the French director Maurice Cloche’s film Marchand de Filles.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Montale: Poems (Everyman's Library Pocket Poets), by Eugenio Montale. Translated and edited by Jonathan Galassi

Eugenio Montale's incandescently beautiful poetry is deeply rooted in the venerable lyric tradition that began with Dante, but he brilliantly reinvents that tradition for our time, probing the depths of love, death, faith and philosophy in the bracing light of modern history. Montale's poems teem with allusion and metaphor but at the same time are densely studded with concrete images that keep his complex musings firmly tethered to the world.  Montale's reputation is international and enduring, and he has influenced generations of poets around the world. Montale: Poems contains selections from all his greatest works, rendered into English by the accomplished poet and translator Jonathan Galassi. It serves as both an essential introduction to an important poet and a true pleasure for lovers of contemporary poetry.

Jonathan Galassi, who has spent a career in publishing and is currently chairman and chief executive of the literary publisher Farrar, Straus and Giroux, is also a poet and has translated the work of Montale and Giacomo Leopardi from Italian to English. 

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Eugenio Montale - poet and translator

Influential writer was fourth Italian to be awarded Nobel Prize in Literature

Eugenio Montale became a
Nobel Prize winner in 1975

Eugenio Montale, who became one of the most influential Italian writers of the 20th century and was awarded a Nobel Prize in Literature in 1975, died on this day in 1981 in Milan at the age of 84.

Montale's most famous work is often considered to be his first, a collection of poems he published in 1925 under the title Ossi di seppia - Cuttlefish Bones. These poems established his use of stark imagery, his introspective tone and his fascination with themes such as desolation, alienation and mortality, and the search for elusive meaning in a fragmented world.

Later collections such as Le occasioni (1939) - The Occasions - and La bufera e altro (1956) - The Storm and Other Things - reinforced his reputation as one of Italian literature’s 20th century greats.

Montale was born in 1896 in a building overlooking the botanical gardens of the University of Genoa, a short distance from the city’s Piazza Principe railway station. His father, Domenico, was the co-owner of a chemical products company.

As a young man, Montale was dogged by ill health but obtained a qualification in accountancy and for eight years had ambitions to be an opera singer under the tuition of the baritone, Ernesto Sivori. He never performed in public and after Sivori died in 1923 he did not pursue his studies, focussing more and more on literature, taking it upon himself to learn about Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio and D'Annunzio in particular.

Eugenio Montale's first volume of poetry
established him as a great literary talent

Despite his frail health, he was passed fit for military service when Italy entered World War One and experienced frontline fighting in the area around Vallarsa and Rovereto. By the time he was discharged in 1920, he had risen to the rank of lieutenant.

Politically, he opposed Fascism to the extent of signing Benedetto Croce’s Manifesto of Anti-Fascist Intellectuals, yet after the fall of Mussolini he rejected both the Christian Democrats and the Italian Communists and, apart from a brief membership of the centre-left Partito d'Azione, steered clear of any involvement in politics.

He began publishing poetry in the 1920s, initially influenced by the works of poets such as Ezra Pound and TS Eliot, but also drawing on the inspiration he took from family holidays on the rugged Ligurian coast around the Cinque Terre and Rapallo. Montale often uses imagery drawn from the sea and the Mediterranean landscape to convey feelings of isolation and the fragility of existence.

In 1927, he moved to Florence, where he worked as a journalist and literary critic and mixed in the city's intellectual and artistic circles, attending literary gatherings of the café Le Giubbe Rosse, meeting Carlo Emilio Gadda, Tommaso Landolfi and Elio Vittorini among others.  He worked as an editor for the publisher Bemporad and later became the director of the Gabinetto Vieusseux Library, although he lost that position in 1938 because of his anti-Fascist views. 

From 1948 until his death, Montale lived in Milan. He became literary editor of the Corriere della Sera, dealing in particular with the Teatro alla Scala, and music critic for the Corriere d'informazione.

Montale was buried alongside his wife,
Drusilla, at cemetery outside Florence

Montale’s language skills enabled him to translate works by authors such as William Blake and Wallace Stevens into Italian, introducing these writers to a wider Italian audience. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1975 as a recognition of his contributions to Italian poetry, joining Giosuè Carducci  (1904), Grazia Deledda (1926) and Luigi Pirandello (1934) as winners of the prestigious award. They would be followed by Dario Fo in 1997 and, posthumously, by Elsa Morante. Montale had earlier been made a senator for life.

In 1962, in Montereggi, near Fiesole, he had married Drusilla Tanzi, with whom he had been living since 1939. Sadly, after a fall that left her with a fractured femur, she died in October 1964 at the age of 77. He would reflect poignantly on her death in his 1966 collection, Xenia, written in a more personal style. 

In failing health, Montale himself died in Milan’s San Pio X clinic in 1981 a month before his 85th birthday.  A state funeral was held in Milan Cathedral and he was buried in the cemetery next to the church of San Felice a Ema, a suburb on the southern outskirts of Florence, next to his wife Drusilla. 

His archive is preserved at the University of Pavia, with which Montale had a long association and where his daughter, Bianca, was a professor.

The pretty fishing village of Boccadesse is only 
a short distance from the historic centre of Genoa

Travel tip:

The port city of Genoa (Genova), where Eugenio Montale was born, is the capital of the Liguria region. It has a rich blend of mediaeval history, Renaissance architecture, and a vibrant modern culture. Its strategic location has made it a centre of trade and commerce for centuries, with considerable wealth built on its shipyards and steelworks, but also boasts many fine buildings, many of which have been restored to their original splendour.  The Doge's Palace, the 16th century Royal Palace and the Romanesque-Renaissance style San Lorenzo Cathedral are just three examples.  The area around the restored harbour area offers a maze of fascinating alleys and squares, enhanced recently by the work of Genoa architect Renzo Piano, and a landmark aquarium, the largest in Italy, which showcases a diverse array of marine life, from sharks and dolphins to jellyfish and seahorses. The picturesque fishing village of Boccadasse, just outside the historic centre, boasts pastel-coloured houses, a charming harbour, and authentic seafood restaurants.

Manarola, where houses cling to rugged cliffs, is
one of the five villages of the Cinque Terre

Travel tip:

The Cinque Terre, where Montale spent family holidays as a child, is a breathtaking part of the Italian Riviera renowned for its picturesque villages perched on cliffs overlooking the Mediterranean. A UNESCO World Heritage Site, it is made up of five villages - Riomaggiore, known for its narrow alleys, charming shops, and stunning views; Manarola, which has a picturesque harbour and colourful houses clinging to the cliff; Vernazza, which has mediaeval castle and a sandy beach; Corniglia, which can be reached only by a steep staircase or a shuttle bus but offers stunning views of the surrounding coastline; and Monterosso al Mare, the largest of the five, which has a sandy beach and a historic centre.  The Cinque Terre National Park offers a network of hiking trails that connect the five villages, while boat tours offer the chance to explore the coastline from a different perspective. The Cinque Terre is known for Sciacchetrà, a sweet dessert wine made from dried grapes.

Also on this day:

1492: The birth of Lorenzo di Piero de’ Medici, Duke of Urbino

1937: The birth of actress Daniela Rocca

1943: Nazis paratroopers free Mussolini from imprisonment at mountain ski resort

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