6 November

NEW - Antonio Landieri - Camorra victim

Family fought for 12 years to establish son’s innocence

A 12-year-fight to clear the name of an innocent victim of a Camorra clan war began on this day in 2004 when 25-year-old Antonio Landieri, a disabled resident of the notorious Vele di Scampia housing complex in Naples, was shot dead outside a recreation club where he had been playing table football with some friends.   Antonio and his friends were leaving the club, at the side of a square known to be frequented by drug dealers, when a car pulled up a short distance away from them in Via Labriola. A group of armed men emerged from the car and began shooting at them.  His friends instinctively ran away but Antonio, who could walk but only with severely restricted mobility - the consequence of complications at birth that left him partially paralysed - could not keep up and was hit several times in the back. He died in the arms of his mother, who had heard the shots being fired and ran down 11 flights of stairs from the family’s apartment in the run-down complex, fearful for her son’s safety.  The shooting made headlines in the local papers, who reported it as the latest event in a rapidly evolving war between rival Camorra gangs that would leave 70 dead in six months.  Read more…

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Enzo Biagi - author and journalist

Much respected presenter taken off air by Berlusconi

Enzo Biagi, the distinguished print and television journalist and author of more than 80 books, died in Milan on this day in 2007, at the age of 87.  A staunch defender of the freedom of the press, Biagi himself was the victim of censorship from the highest level of the Italian government in 2002 when prime minister Silvio Berlusconi effectively sacked him from the public broadcaster RAI for what he called "criminal use" of the network.  In what became known as il Editto bulgaro - the Bulgarian Edict - because he made the pronouncement during a state visit to Sofia, Berlusconi named another journalist, Michele Santoro, and the satirical comedian, Daniele Luttazzi, as guilty of similar conduct and said it was his duty to "not to allow this to happen".  It meant that the last years of Biagi's life were marred somewhat by an absence from the screen that lasted five years.  He made an emotional comeback in April 2007, seven months before his death, when Romani Prodi had begun his second stint as PM and saw to it that he was reinstated.  Berlusconi's disapproval of Biagi was thought to have related to two interviews he conducted during the run-up to the 2001 elections.  Read more…

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Giovanni Buitoni - entrepreneur

Turned family business into multinational company

Giovanni Buitoni, the entrepreneur who turned Buitoni pasta and Perugina chocolates into the international brands they are today, was born on this day in 1891 in Perugia.  The Buitoni family had been making pasta since 1827, when Giovanni’s great grandmother, Giulia, opened a small shop in the Tuscan town of Sansepolcro, in order to support the family after her husband, Giovan Battista Buitoni, had become ill.  She had her own recipe for pasta that used only high quality durum wheat.  Giulia had pawned her wedding jewellery in order to set up the shop but the business did so well that in 1856 two of the couple’s nine children, Giuseppe and Giovanni, opened a factory in Città di Castello, just over the border in northern Umbria, to manufacture pasta using a hard durum wheat they sourced in Puglia.  Giovanni’s sons, Antonio and Francesco, continued the company’s expansion, founding manufacturing plants in other towns, including Perugia.  It was in Perugia in 1907 that Francesco, noting the increasing popularity of chocolate, joined several partners in launching the Perugina confectionary company. Giovanni junior’s destiny was probably always to have a role in the family business, although it came rather sooner than he expected.  Read more…

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Cesare Lombroso – criminologist

Professor who first encouraged study of criminal mind

Cesare Lombroso, a university professor often referred to as ‘the father of criminology’ was born on this day in 1835 in Verona.  Although many of his views are no longer held to be correct, he was the first to establish the validity of scientific study of the criminal mind, paving the way for a generation of psychiatrists and psychologists to create a greater understanding of criminal behaviour.  In broad terms, Lombroso's theory was that criminals could be distinguished from law-abiding people by multiple physical characteristics, which he contended were throwbacks to primitive, even subhuman ancestors, which brought with them throwbacks to primitive behaviour that went against the rules and expectations of modern civilised society.  Through years of postmortem examinations and comparative studies of criminals, the mentally disturbed and normal non-criminal individuals, Lombroso formed the belief that ‘born criminals’ could be identified by such features as the angle of their forehead, the size of their ears, a lack of symmetry in the face or even arms of excessive length.  Read more…

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Vino Novello

Raise a glass to autumn in Italy

Italy’s new wine from this year’s harvest - Vino Novello - goes on sale in the shops and will be served in bars and restaurants from around today.  The light, fruity, red wine, produced throughout Italy from different grape varieties, is enjoyable to drink and a bargain buy to take home with you.  Vino Novello is often similar in taste, body and colour to the French wine, Beaujolais Nouveau, which is exported to a number of other countries after its release in the third week of November.  Like Beaujolais Nouveau, Vino Novello has a low alcohol content and is meant to be drunk while it is still young. The wine should be consumed quickly after the bottle is opened and unopened bottles should be kept for only a few months. In some parts of Italy there is a tradition that the last days to drink it are i giorni della merla (the days of the blackbird), which are traditionally the coldest days at the end of January.  A major area for production is the Veneto, with the merlot grape being the one most used by winemakers to make Vino Novello. Many wine producing areas hold feste to celebrate and will serve local specialities to eat with the new wine.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Mafia Republic: Italy's Criminal Curse. Cosa Nostra, 'Ndrangheta and Camorra from 1946 to the Present, by John Dickie

In Mafia Republic, John Dickie, Professor of Italian Studies at University College, London and author of the international bestsellers Cosa Nostra and Mafia Brotherhoods, shows how the Italian mafias have grown in power and become more and more interconnected, with terrifying consequences.  In 1946, Italy became a democratic Republic, thereby entering the family of modern western nations. But deep within Italy there lurked a forgotten curse: three major criminal brotherhoods, whose methods had been honed over a century of experience. As Italy grew, so did the mafias. Sicily's Cosa Nostra, the Camorra from Naples, and the mysterious 'Ndrangheta from Calabria stood ready to enter the wealthiest and bloodiest period of their long history.  Italy made itself rich by making scooters, cars and handbags. The mafias carved out their own route to wealth through tobacco smuggling, construction, kidnapping and narcotics. And as criminal business grew exponentially, the mafias grew not just more powerful, but became more interconnected.  By the 1980s, Southern Italy was on the edge of becoming a narco-state. The scene was set for a titanic confrontation between heroic representatives of the law, and mafiosi who could no longer tolerate any obstacle to their ambitions. This was a war for Italy's future as a civilized country. At its peak in 1992-93, the 'Ndrangheta was beheading people in the street, and the Sicilian Mafia murdered its greatest enemies, investigating magistrates Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, before embarking on a major terrorist bombing campaign on the Italian mainland.  The reach of the camorra, in particular, had become astonishing, the organisation controlling much of Europe's wholesale cocaine trade. In Mafia Republic, John Dickie again marries outstanding scholarship with compelling storytelling.

John Dickie is Professor of Italian Studies at University College, London and author of the international bestsellers Cosa Nostra and Mafia Brotherhoods. 

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Antonio Landieri - Camorra victim

Family fought for 12 years to establish son’s innocence

Antonio Landieri's disability meant he was unable
to escape as Camorra gunmen opened fire

A 12-year-fight to clear the name of an innocent victim of a Camorra clan war began on this day in 2004 when 25-year-old Antonio Landieri, a disabled resident of the notorious Vele di Scampia housing complex in Naples, was shot dead outside a recreation club where he had been playing table football with some friends.

Antonio and his friends were leaving the club, at the side of a square known to be frequented by drug dealers, when a car pulled up a short distance away from them in Via Labriola. A group of armed men emerged from the car and began shooting at them.

His friends instinctively ran away but Antonio, who could walk but only with severely restricted mobility - the consequence of complications at birth that left him partially paralysed - could not keep up and was hit several times in the back. He died in the arms of his mother, who had heard the shots being fired and ran down 11 flights of stairs from the family’s apartment in the run-down complex, fearful for her son’s safety.

The shooting made headlines in the local papers, who reported it as the latest event in a rapidly evolving war between rival Camorra gangs that would leave 70 dead in six months.  The dead man, they said, was associated with the Di Lauro clan which controlled much of Scampia; the attackers were from the Amato-Pagano clan from neighbouring Secondigliano.

Antonio Lampieri’s family insisted this was not the case but few people other than relatives and close friends believed them. The police refused to allow Antonio a public funeral on the grounds that it could lead to more criminality. 

The Vele di Scampia apartment blocks acquired
their name because their shape resembled sails

As far as the authorities, the press and most of the city’s population were concerned, Antonio had been an international drug dealer who often travelled between Italy and Colombia. 

His family’s bid to convince people otherwise was not helped by the reputation of the Vele, also known as the Sette Palazzi - the Seven Palaces.

A large urban housing project built between 1962 and 1975, the Vele di Scampia consisted of seven massive apartment blocks, constructed to house between 40,000 to 70,000 people. The blocks were dubbed vele (sails) for their triangular shape.

The complex was inspired by modernist housing developments pioneered by French-Swiss architect Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, known as Le Corbusier.  

The architect in charge, Francesco Di Salvo, was a specialist in low-cost housing and the Vele di Scampia buildings were designed to provide only subsistence-level dwellings. Although they were deliberately minimal, they were to have many shared exterior spaces. Di Salvo believed he could construct apartment blocks that recreated the spirit of the alleys and courtyards of historic Naples, crowded but congenial.

But costs soon exceeded the city’s budget for the project, with funds frequently stolen, and the green spaces, schools, common areas and playgrounds that were meant to become the pulsating heart of a thriving community never materialised. 

The promised public transport links with central Naples were never built and the Sette Palazzi turned into a hotspot for organised crime. Prostitution and drug-dealing took place openly. The police only occasionally took any notice and Scampia, which like Secondigliano had been a rural village before Naples began to expand, became a symbol for urban decline.

Naples mayor Luigi De Magistris
commended the Landieri family

Three of the seven blocks were demolished in 1997, 2000 and 2003. Yet 40,000 residents, some of whom had been displaced by the earthquake that hit the Naples area in 1980, remained squeezed into the four remaining blocks. Many outsiders believed that no one would choose to stay in the Vele unless they were involved in crime.

Antonio’s parents, Enzo and Raffaella, never gave up their fight to achieve justice for their son, despite being offered money by the family of one of the gunmen as compensation in return for giving up their quest for the truth.

They were helped in their cause by numerous groups and associations set up to campaign on their behalf, by a tenacious anti-mafia prosecutor, Maurizio De Marco, and ultimately by evidence given by eight different Camorra pentiti - informants who had struck deals with prosecutors to reduce their own sentences.

The process took 12 years but it was finally established that the intended victims were the Meola brothers, Vittorio and Salvatore, who were Di Lauro affiliates.  Antonio Landieri had been mistaken for a Meola associate known to have difficulty walking.  

In 2017, Landieri’s parents at last learned that their son was to be given official state recognition as an innocent victim of the Camorra. The mayor of Naples, Luigi De Magistris, commended the family for “never giving up in the search for truth and in the pursuit of justice".

The five individuals named as the perpetrators of the killing were sentenced to life imprisonment. Others involved had died before the case came to trial.

Landieri has been honoured in a number of ways in Scampia, with a tree planted in his name near Piazza Giovanni Paolo II, an annual poetry competition held for the Antonio Landieri prize and the local football stadium renamed Stadio Antonio Landieri.

A book dedicated to him - entitled Al di là della neve, storie di Scampia (Beyond the Snow, Stories of Scampia) - written by his cousin, Rosario Esposito La Rossa, won the 2008 Siani Prize.

Roberto Saviano's book put
Scampia in the spotlight

Travel tip: 

Though hardly a tourist attraction in the conventional sense, Scampia attracts some visitors, particularly because of the notoriety of the Vele. The area was immortalised by the author and investigative journalist Roberto Saviano in his book, Gomorrah, which documented Saviano's infiltration and investigation of a number areas of business and daily life controlled or affected by the Camorra.  Scenes from both the film and TV series based on the book were filmed in the neighbourhood, some inside the actual Vele complex. It was seen in a better light, however, when US actor Stanley Tucci’s culinary series, Searching for Italy, ventured into the area to feature a bistrot run by local volunteers. The intention to demolish the complex’s remaining blocks was announced in 2016 and residents began moving out in 2019 but it was later announced that one block was to be preserved and repurposed as offices. 

The Piazza del Plebiscito is the largest
public square in the city of Naples

Travel tip:

Scampia, which is just a 10-minute drive from Naples’s Capodichino international airport, is less than 10km (six miles) from the centre of the city, which many tourists do visit. They are drawn by such attractions as Teatro di San Carlo, the oldest continuously active venue for public opera in the world; the large open space of the Piazza del Plebiscito, which adjoins the Palazzo Reale; the Capodimonte Royal Palace and Museum, which houses works by Caravaggio, Raphael and Botticelli; the Santa Chiara religious complex; the elegant, glass-domed Galleria Umberto I, a 19th century shopping arcade; and the 12th century Castel dell'Ovo, located on a promontory and offering beautiful views of the harbour and Mount Vesuvius, the volcano - officially still active, although dormant since 1944 - that overlooks the city.

Also on this day:

1835: The birth of criminologist Cesare Lombroso

1891: The birth of entrepreneur Giovanni Buitoni

2007: The death of author and journalist Enzo Biagi

Vino Novello goes on sale

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5 November

Pietro Longhi - painter

Painter who allowed us to see inside 18th century Venice

The painter Pietro Longhi, who was renowned for his accurate scenes of everyday life in Venice in the 18th century, was born on this day in 1702.  Longhi was originally called Pietro Falca and was the son of a silversmith in Venice, but he changed his name after he began painting.  He started with historical and religious scenes but his work evolved after a stay in Bologna where he encountered Giuseppe Maria Crespi, who was considered one of the greatest Italian painters at the time.  Longhi’s son Alessandro later wrote that his father had a ‘brilliant and bizarre spirit’, which led him to accurately paint people in conversation and show us the love and jealousy going on in the background.  His paintings vividly depict Venetian life and show wonderful details of the clothes and possessions of the upper and middle classes.  For example, Longhi’s painting of The Hairdresser and the Lady, which is in the Correr Museum in Venice, shows a wealthy Venetian lady having her hair dressed by a man, while a maid stands to one side holding a child. Longhi faithfully shows us how the clothing of each subject reflects the rank of the person wearing it and allows us to see the various objects scattered on the lady’s dressing table.  Read more…

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Filippo Taglioni - dancer and choreographer

Father of star ballerina was pioneer of Romantic ballet

The dancer and choreographer Filippo Taglioni, who choreographed the original version of the ballet classic La Sylphide for his ballerina daughter Marie Taglioni, was born on this day in 1777 in Milan.  La Sylphide was one of the earliest works to represent a new ballet genre, which became known as Romantic ballet, that gained popularity in the 19th century as an alternative to traditional classical ballet.  Romantic ballet was different in that the characters were recognisable as real people rather than the gods and goddesses and strange creatures from Roman and Greek mythology that populated classical ballet.  The work, which premiered at the Salle Le Peletier of the Paris Opéra in 1832, cemented Marie Taglioni’s status as a star, the prima ballerina of the Romantic movement, although the version performed today - the only version to have survived - was choreographed by the Danish ballet master August Bournonville in 1836.  Filippo was part of an Italian dancing dynasty of the 18th and 19th centuries. His father and mother, Carlo Taglioni and Maria Petracchi, were both dancers. Carlo, who was born in Turin, worked in Venice, Rome, Siena and Udine.  Read more…

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Alessandro Malaspina - explorer

Mapped Pacific on four-year epic journey

Alessandro Malaspina, an explorer not so well known as his compatriots, Amerigo Vespucci and Christopher Colombus, but whose contribution to mankind’s knowledge of the globe was no less important, was born on this day in 1754 in Mulazzo, a village now in the province of Massa-Carrara, about 120km (75 miles) northwest of Florence.  Like Vespucci and Columbus, Malaspina sailed under the flag of Spain, whose king, Charles III, was an enthusiastic supporter of scientific research and exploration.  He spent much of his life as an officer in the Spanish navy, and it was after completing an 18-month circumnavigation of the world on behalf of the Royal Philippines Company between September 1786 and May 1788 that he proposed to the Spanish government that he make an expedition to the Pacific similar to those undertaken by the British explorer James Cook and the Frenchman Comte de la Pèrouse.  His proposal was accepted in part after word reached Spain that a Russian expedition was being prepared with the objective of claiming territory on the northwest coast of North America that had already been claimed by Spain.  Read more…

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Giovanni Battista Belzoni – archaeologist

The Great Belzoni’s powerful physique helped him remove Egyptian treasures

Explorer and pioneer archaeologist of Egyptian antiquities, Giovanni Battista Belzoni, was born on this day in 1778 in Padua, which was then part of the Republic of Venice.  He became famous for his height and strength and his discovery and removal to England of the seven-ton bust of Ramesses II. Belzoni was born into a poor family. At the age of 16 he went to find work in Rome and studied hydraulics. He was planning to take monastic vows but in 1798 French troops occupied the city and he moved to the Batavian Republic, now the Netherlands, where he earned his living as a barber.  He moved to England in 1803, allegedly to escape going to prison. He was six feet seven inches tall and had a powerful physique. For a while he earned his living as a circus strongman under the name, The Great Belzoni.  He also exhibited his models of hydraulic engines and went to Cairo in 1815 to offer hydraulic engines for use in irrigation to Muhammad Ali Pasha, the founder of modern Egypt.  But two years later he embarked on another new career, excavating Egyptian tombs and temples for their treasures. It was said he damaged other less valuable objects in the process, which was later frowned upon.  Read more…

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Francesco Chiarello - survivor of two World Wars

Calabrian veteran lived to be 109 years old

Francesco Domenico Chiarello, who would live to be one of the world's longest surviving veterans to serve in both World Wars, was born on this day in 1898.  Chiarello was 109 years old when he died in June 2008.  Of soldiers anywhere on the planet who were active in the 1914-18 conflict and were called up again after 1939, only the Frenchman Fernand Goux outlived him.  Goux, from the Loiret department of central northern France, died just five months later, aged 108.  Chiarello also died as one of the last two surviving Italian soldiers from the First World War, outlived only by Delfino Borroni, from just outside Pavia in Lombardy, who was a tram driver during the Second World War.  Borroni recovered from serious injuries sustained in an Allied bombing raid to be 110 years old when he died four months after Chiarello.  Chiarello, a farmer from Umbriatico in the province of Crotone in Calabria,  joined the Italian army in 1918 as a member of the 19th infantry regiment from Cosenza.  He was sent to the northern front at Trento where he took part in the final Battle of Vittorio Veneto, a seminal moment in the history of the conflict and of Italy.  Read more…

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Attilio Ariosti – composer

Musical friar was once a rival of Handel

Baroque composer Attilio Malachia Ariosti, who in later life became a rival of Handel in London musical circles, was born on this day in 1666 in Bologna.  He became a Servite Friar, known as Frate Ottavio, when he was 22, but he quickly obtained permission to leave the order and become a composer at the court of the Duke of Mantua and Monferrato.  During his life, Ariosti composed more than 30 operas and oratorios as well as many cantatas and instrumental works.  Ariosti became a Deacon in 1692 and then obtained the post of organist at the Church of Santa Maria dei Servi in Bologna.  His first opera, Tirsi, was performed in Venice in 1697 and that same year he was invited to travel to Berlin by Sophia Charlotte of Hanover, the Queen of Prussia. She was a great-granddaughter of James I of England and the daughter of the Electress Sophia of Hanover, a committed patron of the arts with a keen interest in music.  The Electress Sophia had been heir presumptive to the throne of the Kingdom of Great Britain and was waiting for the death of her first cousin once removed, Queen Anne, before travelling to Britain to claim her title.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: The Republic of Venice in the 18th Century (Viella History, Art and Humanities Collection), by Walter Panciera

The Republic of Venice in the 18th Century traces the last century of life of the Republic of Venice. It aims to show why the "Serenissima", unlike large countries such as France or England, was not on the way to becoming a modern nation. Until its end, the city of Venice never took the shape of a real national capital, but remained the dominant centre linking wide-ranging and diverse territories around the Adriatic. The particularism, or rather polycentrism, of its state apparatus is the key to understanding its limitations, as well as the legacy left in Venice's vast domains, reaching from Corfu to Lombardy. In the 18th century the Republic was weak compared to the great European states. Its institutions and leadership had been frozen for two centuries and there was no political reform, although Enlightenment culture diffused widely over the century. On the economic level, however, there was little sign of "decay": merchant traffic continued to prosper and there were a number of new developments in the manufacturing sphere.

Walter Panciera is professor of Modern History in the Department of Historical, Geographical and Antiquity Sciences of the University of Padua.

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4 November

Florence's catastrophic floods

Tuscan capital devastated on same day six centuries apart

More than 3,000 people were believed to have been killed when the River Arno flooded the streets of Florence on this day in 1333.  More than six centuries later, 101 people died when the city was flooded on the same day in 1966. The 50th anniversary of the most recent catastrophe, which took a staggering toll of priceless books and works of art in the Cradle of the Renaissance, was commemorated in the city on November 4, 2016.  The 1333 disaster - the first recorded flood of the Arno - was chronicled for posterity by Giovanni Villani, a diplomat and banker living in the city.  A plaque in Via San Remigio records the level the water allegedly reached in 1333 and another plaque commemorates the level the water reached after the river flooded in 1966, exactly 633 years later.  Villani wrote in his Nuova Cronica (New Chronicle), ‘By noon on Thursday, 4 November, 1333, a flood along the Arno River spread across the entire plain of San Salvi.’  By nightfall, the flood waters had filled the city streets and Villani claimed the water rose above the altar in Florence’s Baptistery, reaching halfway up the porphyry columns.  Read more…

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Guido Reni - painter

Bolognese artist who idealised Raphael

The leading Baroque painter, Guido Reni, was born on this day in 1575 in Bologna, then part of the Papal States.  He was to become a dominant figure in the Bolognese school of painting, which emerged under the influence of the Carracci, a family of painters in Bologna. He was held in high regard because of the classical idealism of his portrayals of mythological and religious subjects.  Although his father, Daniele, wanted him to follow in his footsteps as a musician, Guido Reni passionately wanted to become an artist and was apprenticed to the Flemish painter Denis Calvaert when he was 10 years old. He focused on studying the works of Raphael, who, for the rest of his life, remained his ideal.  Reni went on to enter the academy led by Ludovico Carracci, the Accademia degli Incamminati - The academy of the newly-embarked - in Bologna. He was received into the guild of painters in the city in 1599 when he was nearly 24. After this he divided his time between his studios in Bologna and Rome.  One of his most famous works, Crucifixion of St Peter, which is now in the Vatican Museum in Rome, was painted for Cardinal Aldobrandini in 1605.  Read more…

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Alfonso II - King of Naples

Ruler forced to abdicate after one year

Alfonso II, who became King of Naples in 1494 but was forced to abdicate after just one year, was born on this day in 1448 in Naples.  Also known as Alfonso II of Aragon, as heir to Ferdinand I he had the title Duke of Calabia from the age of 10. Blessed with a natural flair for leadership and military strategy, he spent much of his life as a condottiero, leading the army of Naples in a number of conflicts.  He contributed to the Renaissance culture of his father’s court, building the splendid palaces of La Duchesca and Poggio Reale, although neither survived to be appreciated today.  Alfonso II also introduced improvements to the urban infrastructure of Naples, building new churches, tree-lined straight roads, and a sophisticated hydraulic system to supply the city’s fountains.  He became King of Naples with the death of his father in January 1494 but stepped down in favour of his son, Ferdinand II, in January the following year as the powerful army of Charles VIII of France, who had launched an invasion of the Italian peninsula in September, 1494, prepared to take the city.   Alfonso fled to Sicily, seeking refuge in a monastery at Mazara del Vallo.  Read more…

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Sandrone Dazieri – crime writer

Best-selling novelist in Italy now published in English

Sandrone Dazieri, an Italian author and screenwriter whose first novel published in English received enthusiastic reviews, was born in Cremona on this day in 1964.  A former chef, Dazieri became a best-selling novelist in his mid-30s with Attenti al Gorilla (Beware of the Gorilla), which introduced a complex character, based on himself and even named Sandrone, who suffers from a personality disorder that makes his behaviour unpredictable yet who solves crimes and tackles injustices.  The book spawned a series featuring the same character that not only gained Dazieri enormous popularity among Italian readers but helped him get work as a screenwriter, especially in the area of TV crime dramas.  He is the main writer on the hugely popular Canale 5 series Squadra Antimafia, to which he contributed for seven seasons.  Now, for the first time, with the help of an American translator, Dazieri has moved into the English language market with Kill the Father, published by Simon & Schuster in London in January 2017.  Already a top-selling title in Italy, the dark crime thriller received good reviews in the literary sections of English newspapers and magazines.  Read more…

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First night at Teatro San Carlo 

Oldest opera house in the world opens its doors in Naples

Teatro di San Carlo in Naples was officially opened on this day in 1737, way ahead of La Scala in Milan and La Fenice in Venice.  Built in Via San Carlo, close to Piazza del Plebiscito, the main square in Naples, Teatro di San Carlo quickly became one of the most important opera houses in Europe and renowned for its excellent productions. The theatre was designed by Giovanni Antonio Medrano for the Bourbon King of Naples, Charles I, and took just eight months to build.  The official inauguration was on the King’s saint’s day, the festival of San Carlo, on the evening of 4 November. There was a performance of Achille in Sciro by Pietro Metastasio with music by Domenico Sarro, who also conducted the orchestra for the music for two ballets.  This was 41 years before La Scala and 55 years before La Fenice opened. San Carlo is now believed to be one of the oldest, if not the oldest, remaining opera houses in the world.  Both Rossini and Donizetti served as artistic directors at San Carlo and the world premieres of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor and Rossini’s Mosè were performed there. In the magnificent auditorium, the focal point is the royal box surmounted by the crown of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.   Read more…

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Book of the Day: Dark Water: Art, Disaster, and Redemption in Florence, by Robert Clark

Birthplace of Michelangelo and home to untold masterpieces, Florence is a city for art lovers. But on November 4, 1966, the rising waters of the Arno threatened to erase over seven centuries of history and human achievement.  Now Robert Clark explores the Italian city's greatest flood and its aftermath through the voices of its witnesses. Two American artists wade through the devastated beauty; a photographer stows away on an army helicopter to witness the tragedy first-hand; a British "mud angel" spends a month scraping mould from the world's masterpieces; and, through it all, an author asks why art matters so very much to us, even in the face of overwhelming disaster.  The Washington Post described Dark Water: Art, Disaster, and Redemption in Florence as "gripping...the stuff of thrilling documentaries”.

Robert Clark is the author of the novels In the Deep Midwinter, Mr. White's Confession and Love Among the Ruins as well as the nonfiction books My Grandfather's House, River of the West and The Solace of Food: A Life of James Beard.

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