20 November

Giampiero Combi - goalkeeper

Juventus stalwart who captained Italy’s 1934 World Cup winners

The footballer Giampiero Combi, who is considered to be one of the best Italian goalkeepers of all time, was born on November 20, 1902 in Turin.  Combi, who spent his entire career with his home-town club Juventus, was Italy’s captain at the 1934 World Cup, which Italy hosted and won, the team coached by Vittorio Pozzo and inspired by the revered Inter Milan striker Giuseppe Meazza defeating Czechoslovakia after extra time in the final of the 16-team tournament.  The achievement in front of excited Italian supporters in Rome capped a marvellous career for Combi, although it came about only by chance.  He had announced that he would retire at the end of the 1933-34 domestic season at the age of 31, having made 40 appearances for the azzurri. But Pozzo had persuaded him to be part of his squad to provide experienced cover for the emerging young Inter star Carlo Ceresoli.  In the event, Ceresoli suffered a broken arm in training a few weeks before the tournament and Combi found himself as the number one. He performed immaculately throughout, conceding only three goals in 510 minutes of football.  Read more…

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Emilio Pucci – fashion designer

The heroic, sporting, creative genius behind the Pucci label

Don Emilio Pucci, Marchese di Barsento, who became a top fashion designer and politician, was born on this day in 1914 in Florence.  Pucci was born into one of the oldest families in Florence and lived and worked in the Pucci Palace in Florence for most of his life. His fashion creations were worn by such famous women as Marilyn Monroe, Sophia Loren and Jackie Kennedy.  A keen sportsman who swam, skied, fenced, played tennis and raced cars, Pucci was part of the Italian team at the 1932 Winter Olympics in New York, although he did not compete.  He studied at the University of Milan, the University of Georgia, and Reed College in Oregon, where he designed the clothes for the college skiing team.  Pucci was awarded an MA in social science from Reed, where he was known to be a staunch defender of the Fascist regime in Italy. He was also awarded a doctorate in political science from the University of Florence.  It was his success as a fashion designer that would in time make his name but before that came some wartime experiences that were extraordinary to say the least.  In 1938 Pucci joined the Italian air force and served as a torpedo bomber, rising to the rank of captain and being decorated for valour.  Read more…

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Giorgio de Chirico – artist

Founder of the scuola metafisica movement

The artist Giorgio de Chirico, who founded the scuola metafisica (metaphysical school) of Italian art that was a profound influence on the country’s Surrealist movement in the early 20th century, died on this day in 1978 in Rome.  Although De Chirico, who was 90 when he passed away, was active for almost 70 years, it is for the paintings of the first decade of his career, between about 1909 and 1919, that he is best remembered.  It was during this period, his metaphysical phase, that he sought to use his art to express what might be called philosophical musings on the nature of reality, taking familiar scenes, such as town squares, and creating images that might appear in a dream, in which pieces of classical architecture would perhaps be juxtaposed with everyday objects in exaggerated form, the scene moodily atmospheric, with areas of dark shadow and bright light, and maybe a solitary figure.  These works were much admired and enormously influential.  During military service in the First World War he met Carlo Carrà, who would become a leading light in the Futurist movement, and together they formed the pittura metafisica (metaphysical painting) movement.  Read more…

Queen Margherita of Savoy

Princess and fashion icon who became Queen of Italy

Margherita Maria Teresa Giovanna of Savoy was born on this day in 1851 in Turin.  The little girl, who was to later become the Queen consort of Italy, was the daughter of Prince Ferdinand Duke of Genoa and Princess Elisabeth of Saxony. She was educated to a high standard and renowned as a charming person with a lively curiosity to learn. A tall, stately blonde, she was not considered a beauty but nonetheless had many admirers.  Having first been suggested to marry Prince Charles of Romania, she instead married her first cousin Umberto, Prince of Piedmont, in April 1868 when she was just 16. The following year she gave birth to Victor Emmanuel, Prince of Naples, who later became King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy. He was to be their only child.  Margherita was crowned Queen of Italy in Naples when Umberto succeeded his father to the throne in January 1878 and she was warmly welcomed by the Neapolitan people.  It was not a particularly good marriage for Margherita. Umberto maintained an affair with a long-term lover, Eugenia Attendolo Bolognini. Read more…

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Diocletian - Roman emperor

Restored stability but launched cruel purge

A Roman cavalry commander who went under the name of Diocles was proclaimed Emperor on this day in 284.  He was given the full name Gaius Aurelius Valerius Diocletianus Augustus according to official inscriptions. He ruled as Diocletian.  He was sole emperor, albeit initially with a disputed claim to power, until 286, joint-emperor until 293, and co-emperor in a tetrarchy until 305.  Born at Salona, a coastal town in Dalmatia (now Solin in Croatia) into a family of humble status in 244, Diocletian rose to power through his military background.  After climbing through the ranks, he became cavalry commander to the Emperor Carus. After the death of Carus in 283, while on a campaign in Persia, power passed to his two sons, Numerian and Carinus.  When Numerian was allegedly murdered by his Praetorian Prefect, Arrius Aper, in 284, Diocletian was proclaimed as emperor by Numerian’s troops. He took it upon himself to avenge the death of Numerian by killing Aper with his own hands.  At the start, however, Diocletian’s power was restricted to the areas controlled by his army, thought to be Asia Minor and Syria. The remainder of the empire was loyal to Carinus.  Read more…

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Book of the Day:  Death or Glory: The Dark History of the World Cup, by Jon Spurling

In 1974 Zaire's football team were summoned into a room in their West German hotel and told that if they lost to Brazil by more than three goals the following day they would never see their families again. In this astonishing book Jon Spurling has travelled the world to scratch beneath the glossy, confetti-strewn surface of the world's biggest sporting event to uncover its dark secrets. What lengths did Argentina's right-wing military junta really go to in order to ensure their national team won the World Cup at home in 1978? Why did Idi Amin instruct Uganda's footballers to "break the teeth" of their Tanzanian counterparts in a World Cup qualifier? What really happened during the infamous 'Soccer War' between El Salvador and Honduras in 1969? Which country's players were sent to work in a chicken-plucking factory as punishment for a poor result during qualifying in 1994? Part travelogue, part history, Death or Glory is based on more than 100 exclusive interviews with players, supporters, writers and team officials. Its 16 chapters take you on a fascinating journey through sport, politics, conflict and civil strife that ultimately reveals the astonishing power of the world's greatest sporting event - a power that goes far beyond a few games of football every four years.

Jon Spurling is a regular contributor to publications including Four Four Two, When Saturday Comes and The Blizzard and is the author of seven books.

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19 November

Giuseppe Volpi - businessman and politician

Founder of the Venice film festival

Businessman and politician Count Giuseppe Volpi of Misurata was born on this day in 1877 in Venice.  Volpi was responsible for bringing electricity to Venice and the north east of Italy in 1903 and had an influence on the development of Porto Marghera, the industrial complex across the lagoon from Venice.  In 1932, as president of the Venice Biennale, Volpi arranged the first Venice Film Festival. It took place between 6 and 21 August on the terrace of the Hotel Excelsior at the Venice Lido.  The first film to be shown at the festival was Rouben Mamoulian’s Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.  The festival was considered a success and was held again in 1934 from 1 to 20 August, when it involved a competition for the first time.  In 1935 the Film Festival became a yearly event in Venice and the Coppa Volpi (Volpi Cup), an award for actors, was introduced for the first time.  Count Volpi received a personal letter from Walt Disney in 1939 thanking him, as president of the Biennale, for the prize awarded to Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs at the film festival. This letter is now in the historical archives of the Biennale.  Read more…

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Luigi Beccali - Olympic athlete

Milanese runner brought home Italy's first track gold

Luigi Beccali, the first Italian to win an Olympic gold medal in track and field events, was born on this day in 1907 in Milan.  Although Italy had won gold medals in fencing and gymnastics in previous Games, Beccali's victory in the 1,500 metres at the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles was the first time an Italian had won gold in a running event.  His victory came out of the blue since the field included several runners with top credentials, including New Zealand’s Jack Lovelock and America's Glenn Cunningham.  Beccali had a reputation as a determined competitor but his results were relatively modest next to those of the favourites.  However, in May of 1932 he had posted a mile time of four minutes 11.5 seconds in Milan which was only four tenths of a second slower than Cunningham's time in winning the 1932 National Collegiate Athletics Association championships.  The three heats at Los Angeles were won by Lovelock, Beccali, and Cunningham, who posted the best time of 3:55.8 in winning the first heat.  In the final, Beccali timed his run superbly, working his way through the field to take the lead from Canada's Phil Edwards, who had started to pull away over the last lap, with 100m remaining. Read more…

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Pino Rauti – politician and journalist

Writer chronicled the story of fascism in Italy

Pino Rauti, leader of the neo-fascist Social Idea Movement, was born Giuseppe Umberto Rauti on this day in 1926 in Cardinale in Calabria.  Rauti was to become a leading figure on the far right of Italian politics from 1948 until his death in 2012.  As a young man he had volunteered for the Guardia Nazionale Repubblicana of Benito Mussolini’s Italian Social Republic and he then went on to join the Spanish Foreign Legion.  After his return to Italy, Rauti joined the post-fascist Italian Social Movement (MSI). He became associated with Julius Evola, a leading fascist philosopher, and became editor of his journal, Imperium.  Rauti joined the staff of the Rome-based daily Il Tempo in 1953 and later became the Italian correspondent for the Aginter Press, a fake press agency set up in Portugal in 1966 to combat communism.  In 1954 he established his own group within MSI, the Ordine Nuovo, but he became disillusioned with MSI and his group separated from the party two years later.  Rauti’s name was linked with a number of terror attacks, including the Piazza Fontana bombing in Milan, which caused 17 deaths. Read more…

Johnny Dundee – world champion boxer

Sicilian changed his name to sound non-Italian

The boxer Johnny Dundee, who was a child when his family emigrated to the United States, was born in Sciacca, a town on the southwest coast of Sicily, on this day in 1893.  Dundee, regarded by many boxing historians as the first of the great Italian-American fighters, had more than 330 fights in a 22-year career in the ring.  At the peak of his career, in the 1920s, Dundee won both the world featherweight and world junior-lightweight titles.  Dundee’s real name is thought to have been Giuseppe Curreri, although some boxing records have his second name as Carrora.  The large numbers of Italian immigrants arriving in New York at around the turn of the 20th century, few of whom spoke any English, sometimes overwhelmed officers at the city’s processing station on Ellis Island and mistakes in recording details were common.  There are variations, too, in accounts of how old Giuseppe was when his family uprooted him from his childhood home, with some saying he was just five but others suggesting he was nine.  What seems not in dispute is that his family joined other Italian families in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Read more…

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Pope Clement VII

Calamitous papacy of a vacillating Medici

Giulio di Giuliano de’ Medici, remembered as the unfortunate Pope who was imprisoned in Castel Sant’Angelo in Rome, was elected on this day in 1523 as Pope Clement VII.  Clement VII also went down in history for refusing to allow the King of England, Henry VIII, to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, causing England to break away from the Catholic Church forever.  One month before Giulio de Medici’s birth, his father was murdered in Florence Cathedral in what is referred to as the Pazzi conspiracy. His mother is believed to have been Fioretta Gorini, the daughter of a university professor, and Giulio was born illegitimately in May 1478 in Florence.  Giulio spent the first seven years of his life living with his godfather, the architect Antonio da Sangallo, the Elder. Then Lorenzo the Magnificent took over, raising him as one of his own sons, alongside Giovanni, the future Pope Leo X, Piero and Giuliano. Young Giulio received a humanist education at Palazzo Medici and became an accomplished musician. He studied canon law at the University of Pisa and accompanied his cousin, Giovanni, to the conclave of 1492 when Rodrigo Borgia was elected Pope Alexander VI.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: The History of Italian Cinema: A Guide To Italian Film From Its Origins To The Twenty-First Century, by Gian Piero Brunetta

The History of Italian Cinema has been called the most comprehensive guide to Italian film ever published. Written by an author acknowledged as the foremost scholar of Italian cinema and presented for the first time in English, this landmark book traces the complete history of filmmaking in Italy, from its origins in the silent era through its golden age in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, its subsequent decline and its resurgence today.  Gian Piero Brunetta covers more than 1,500 films, discussing renowned masters including Roberto Rossellini and Federico Fellini, as well as directors lesser known outside Italy like Dino Risi and Ettore Scola. He examines overlooked Italian genre films such as horror movies, comedies, and Westerns, and devotes attention to neglected periods such as the Fascist era. Brunetta illuminates the epic scope of Italian filmmaking, showing it to be a powerful cultural force in Italy as well as an enduring influence abroad. Encompassing the social, political, and technical aspects of the craft, he recreates the world of Italian cinema, giving readers rare insights into the actors, cinematographers, film critics, and producers that have made Italian cinema unique. Brunetta's passion as a true fan of Italian movies comes across on every page of this panoramic guide.  A delight for film lovers everywhere, The History of Italian Cinema reveals the full artistry of Italian film.

Gian Piero Brunetta is an Italian film critic, film historian, and academic. He is Professor of Cinema History and Criticism at the University of Padua and the author of more than 20 books. 

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18 November

NEW - Enrico Vanzini - Dachau survivor

Italian internee forced to work for Nazis

Enrico Vanzini, a remarkable centenarian former soldier who survived seven months in a concentration camp after being forced to assist his captors as his fellow detainees were subjected to the horrors perpetrated by the Nazi regime, was born on this day in 1922 in the town of Fagnano Olona in Lombardy.  Vanzini, who was stationed with the Italian army in Greece for much of World War Two, was arrested in September 1943 after swearing allegiance to the King of Italy rather than Benito Mussolini’s Republic of Salò.  He spent the remainder of the conflict as a prisoner of war in Germany, at the end of which he was forced to work as a member of the so-called Sonderkommando, a group of prisoners made to collaborate with the Nazi SS in the extermination of mainly Jewish detainees in their death camps.  Vanzini was made to assist among other things with the cremation of bodies at Dachau, just outside Munich, where he spent seven months. The ordeal ended when the camp was liberated by the Allies in April 1945, at which point he weighed just 64lbs (29kg).  At the age of 102 and resident of a care home in Padua, he is the only Italian former Sonderkommando still alive.  Read more…

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Stefano Cardu - builder and architect

Sardinian who made fortune in Siam

The builder and architect Stefano Cardu, who enjoyed a lucrative relationship with the government of Siam in the late 19th century, was born on this day in 1849 in Cagliari, Sardinia.  Cardu built many important buildings in Siam - now Thailand - including a royal palace, the national military college and a luxury hotel to house foreign diplomats, as well as contributing to the country’s expanding infrastructure with roads and bridges.  The company he built up provided him with considerable wealth and when he returned to Cagliari he donated his collection of Siamese art, antiquities and other items to the city. They have been preserved in a museum that can be visited today.  It is not known with certainty how Cardu came to be in Siam. After he died in 1933, an obituary appeared in a newspaper in Sardinia that claimed he was shipwrecked off the coast and swam to the shore pursued by sharks, although the story has not been corroborated.  The account may be true, nonetheless.  Born into a family of carpenters, he acquired some knowledge of design and construction as he was growing up, although his ambition was to sail ships.  Read more…

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Attilio Bertolucci - poet

Pastoral scenes and family life inspired writer from Parma

Writer and poet Attilio Bertolucci was born on this day in 1911 in San Lazzaro, a hamlet in the countryside near Parma in Emilia-Romagna. Bertolucci wrote about his own family life and became renowned for the musicality of his language while describing humble places and human feelings. He became an important figure in 20th century Italian poetry and was the father of film directors Bernardo and Giuseppe Bertolucci.  Attilio Bertolucci was born into a middle-class, agricultural family. He began writing poems at the age of seven and published his first collection of poems, Sirio, when he was 18.  He went to study law at the University of Parma when he was 19, but soon gave it up in favour of literary studies. He also went to the University of Bologna to study art history. He went on to teach art history at the Maria Luigia boarding school in Parma.  He became a book reviewer and theatre and film critic for the Parma newspaper, La Gazzetta, and developed anti-fascist feelings along with other intellectuals at the time. He worked as foreign editor for the poetry publisher, Guanda, and introduced a range of modern poetry from overseas to Italy.  Read more…

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Gianni Mazzocchi - publisher

Business success marred by personal heartache

The publisher Gianni Mazzocchi, a magazine editor-proprietor who founded more than 15 national magazines, of which several titles, including Il Mondo, L'Europeo and Quattroruote, continued to be published long after his death, was born on this day in 1906 in Ascoli Piceno in Marche.  Mazzocchi became a publisher by accident after quitting university to support his family. But through a combination of boundless energy and a chance meeting with the architect and designer Gio Ponti, he launched himself as a magazine proprietor with enormous success.  His life was bookended by personal heartache. His early years were marred when illness and misfortune struck his family. Towards the end of his life he suffered the ordeal of having his eldest daughter kidnapped and was then left a widower, the stress of the episode being blamed for the sudden death of his wife.  Mazzocchi, whose father was a breeder of silkworms at a time when such skills could yield a good living, seemed destined for a career in the law after winning a scholarship to study jurisprudence in Rome.  But the family’s prosperity abruptly collapsed.  Read more…

Gio Ponti - architect and designer

Visionary who shaped more than 100 buildings

Giovanni ‘Gio’ Ponti, one of the most influential architects and designers of the 20th century, was born on this day in 1891 in Milan.  During a career that spanned six decades, Ponti completed more than 100 architectural projects in Italy and abroad and also designed hundreds of pieces of furniture, decorative objects and household items.  As an architect, he made a significant impact on the appearance of his home city. The Pirelli Tower, which for 35 years was Italy’s tallest skyscraper, is the building for which Ponti is most famous, but it is only one of 46 in Milan.  He also designed the Montecatini buildings, the Torre Littoria (now known as the Torre Branca) in Parco Sempione, the San Luca Evangelista church in Via Andrea Maria Ampère, and Monument to the Fallen in Piazza Sant’Ambrogio.  Ponti’s work was by no means confined to Milan, however.  Elsewhere in Italy, he designed the Mathematics Institute at the University of Rome, the Carmelo Monastery in Sanremo, the Villa Donegani in Bordighera, the Gran Madre di Dio Concattedrale in Taranto and the Hotel Parco dei Principi in Sorrento.  Read more…

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Alfonso Ferrero La Marmora - military leader

General who became prime minister of Italy

Alfonso Ferrero La Marmora, a general and statesman who became the sixth prime minister of Italy, was born on this day in 1804 in Turin.  A graduate of the Turin Military Academy, La Marmora went on to play an important part in the Risorgimento, the movement to create a united Italy.  One of his older brothers was Alessandro Ferrero La Marmora, who founded the Italian army’s famous Bersaglieri corps, which entered French-occupied Rome in 1870 through a breach in the wall at Porta Pia and completed the unification of Italy.  Alfonso La Marmora went into the army in 1823 and first distinguished himself in the Italian wars of independence against Austria.  In 1848, La Marmora rescued the Sardinian king, Charles Albert, from Milanese revolutionaries who had resented the king’s armistice with the Austrians. Afterwards he was promoted to general and briefly served as minister of war.  La Marmora suppressed an insurrection at Genoa in 1849 and commanded the Sardinian forces in the Crimean War in 1855.  Later, while serving as minister of war again, he reorganised the Italian army.  He then served as premier of Piedmont, governor of Milan and as the king’s lieutenant in Naples.  Read more…

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Eleonora Gonzaga – Holy Roman Empress

Pious princess who promoted the arts and education

Eleonora Gonzaga, Princess of Mantua, Nevers and Rethel, was born on this day in 1630 in Mantua.  She grew up to marry the Holy Roman Emperor, Ferdinand III, and established a reputation as one of the most educated and virtuous women of her time.  Eleonora became fascinated by religious poetry, founded a literary academy and was a patron of musical theatre.  As Holy Roman Empress she developed the cultural and spiritual life at the Imperial Court in Vienna, continuing the work of her great aunt, also called Eleonora, who had introduced opera to Vienna in the early part of the 17th century.  Vienna subsequently became recognised as the music capital of Europe.  Eleonora was the second child of Charles Gonzaga, Duke of Nevers, who was heir to the Duchy of Mantua, and Maria Gonzaga, who was heiress to the Duchy of Montferrat.  She was given a good education, became fluent in French, Spanish and Italian and learnt about literature, music and art.  Having become interested in poetry, she composed religious and philosophical poems herself.  A marriage was arranged for her with the Holy Roman Emperor, who imposed the condition that the Duchy of Mantua had to remain loyal to the Empire.  Read more…

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St Peter’s Basilica consecrated

Artists helped design magnificent church

The stunning Renaissance Basilica of St Peter in Rome was completed and consecrated on this day in 1626.  Believed to be the largest church in the world, Basilica Papale di San Pietro in Vaticano was built to replace the original fourth century basilica that had been constructed on what was believed to be the burial site of St Peter.  Bramante, Michelangelo and Bernini were among the many artistic geniuses who contributed to the design of the church, which is considered to be a masterpiece of Renaissance architecture.  Located within Vatican City, the Basilica is approached along Via della Conciliazione and through the vast space of St Peter’s Square.  The magnificent central dome of the Basilica dominates the skyline of Rome and the balcony above the entrance, where the Pope makes appearances, is instantly recognisable because of the many times it has been shown on television.  It is believed that St Peter, one of the disciples of Jesus, was executed in Rome on 13 October, 64 AD during the reign of the Emperor Nero. He was buried close to the place of his martyrdom.  The old St Peter’s Basilica was constructed over the burial site 300 years later.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: The Holocaust: A New History, by Laurence Rees

This landmark work answers two of the most fundamental questions in history - how, and why, did the Holocaust happen?  Laurence Rees spent 25 years meeting survivors and perpetrators of the Holocaust. He combined their enthralling eyewitness testimony, a large amount of which has never been published before, with the latest academic research to create the first accessible and authoritative account of the Holocaust in more than three decades. The Holocaust: A New History justified its title in three ways. First, Rees created a gripping narrative containing a large amount of testimony that had never been published before. Second, he placed this powerful interview material in the context of an examination of the decision making process of the Nazi state, and in the process revealed the series of escalations that cumulatively created the horror. Third, Rees covered all those across Europe who participated in the deaths, and he argues that whilst hatred of the Jews was always at the epicentre of Nazi thinking, what happened cannot be fully understood without considering the murder of the Jews alongside plans to kill millions of non-Jews, including homosexuals, 'Gypsies' and the disabled.  This is a compelling new account of the worst crime in history.

Laurence Rees, the award-winning former Head of BBC TV History programmes, is the author of several acclaimed books on the Second World War and television series, including The Nazis: A Warning from History, Auschwitz: The Nazis and the 'Final Solution', World War II: Behind Closed Doors, and The Dark Charisma of Adolf Hitler.

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Enrico Vanzini - Dachau survivor

Italian internee forced to work for Nazis

Enrico Vanzini kept his story
private for 60 years after WW2

Enrico Vanzini, a remarkable centenarian former soldier who survived seven months in a concentration camp after being forced to assist his captors as his fellow detainees were subjected to the horrors perpetrated by the Nazi regime, was born on this day in 1922 in the town of Fagnano Olona in Lombardy.

Vanzini, who was stationed with the Italian army in Greece for much of World War Two, was arrested in September 1943 after swearing allegiance to the King of Italy rather than Benito Mussolini’s Republic of Salò.

He spent the remainder of the conflict as a prisoner of war in Germany, at the end of which he was forced to work as a member of the so-called Sonderkommando, a group of prisoners made to collaborate with the Nazi SS in the extermination of mainly Jewish detainees in their death camps.

Vanzini was made to assist among other things with the cremation of bodies at Dachau, just outside Munich, where he spent seven months. The ordeal ended when the camp was liberated by the Allies in April 1945, at which point he weighed just 64lbs (29kg).

At the age of 102 and resident of a care home in Padua, he is the only Italian former Sonderkommando still alive.

In his book, entitled L'ultimo sonderkommando italiano - The Last Italian Sonderkommando - he described himself as “an ordinary village lad” in Fagnano. He was born just 10 days after Mussolini’s Fascists took power in Italy.

The gates of the Dachau complex near
Munich, soon after it was liberated

His father, who had been a soldier in World War One, was no supporter of the Fascist regime and Vanzini grew up to have similar sentiments. Yet at the age of 18 he found himself fighting on the side of Mussolini and the Germans.

Having enlisted in the artillery in the Alba Barracks with the outbreak of war in 1939, he was initially destined for the Russian front but was spared being one of 115,000 Italians killed there by a bout of appendicitis. When he had recovered sufficiently to resume service, he was sent instead to Greece, where Italian casualties were far fewer.

He was still in Greece when Mussolini was arrested on the orders of the Italian monarch, King Victor Emmanuel III, in July 1943, and detained at a remote hotel in the Apennine mountains.  When the dictator was freed by German paratroopers two months later and installed as leader of the puppet state of Salò in Nazi-occupied northern Italy, Vanzini refused to be part of the new republic, swearing loyalty to the King instead.

Subsequently arrested, he became a prisoner of war and was put on a train in Athens and taken to the city of Ingolstadt in Bavaria, where he was forced to work in a tank chassis factory.

A year after his arrival there, the factory was destroyed in an American bombing raid and he and two companions slipped away in the ensuing chaos, only to be recaptured 10 days later in the countryside near Munich. Ironically, they were betrayed by an Italian girl who befriended them but turned out to be a spy working for the Germans.

Vanzini wrote a book about
his experience at Dachau

The trio were sent to Buchenwald and initially were condemned to death by firing squad. Arguing that they fled the Ingolstadt factory for their own safety, they were spared death but only after being earmarked to work in the gas chambers at Dachau, where their grim duties included retrieving bodies for cremation.

Thankfully, the arrival of Allied troops at Dachau allowed Vanzini to return home. Once he had regained his health, he had a career as a bus or lorry driver and lived a quiet life, keeping his experiences to himself for 60 years before, in 2003, he began to share his stories. At first he held conferences in schools and public halls, later participating in a documentary film and eventually writing his book.

On Holocaust Remembrance Day, in January, 2013 the President of the Republic, Giorgio Napolitano, presented him with the Medal of Honour.

Extraordinarily, given what he had been through, Vanzini has enjoyed a remarkably long and healthy life. He was still fit enough at 99 years of age to be granted a two-year extension to his driver’s licence and, having revealed in an interview his lifelong devotion to the Inter-Milan football team, was presented with a special club shirt on his 100th birthday.

The Visconti Castle at Fagnano Olona has stood
guard over the town since Mediaeval times

Travel tip:

Fagnano Olona, where Vanzini was born, is a town of 12,301 inhabitants about 19km (12 miles) south of the city of Varese. Originally a Roman settlement, it occupied a strategic position on the Olona river. A castle built there in the Middle Ages was fought for by both the Della Torre and Visconti families in the 13th century and the armies of France and Spain 200 years later. The town has a number of important religious buildings including the Sanctuary of the Madonna della Selva and the parish church of San Gaudenzio. The mediaeval Visconti Castle in Piazza Cavour, between the centre of the town and the Olona river, today houses the town hall.

The waterfront at modern-day Salò, which is a
thriving resort on picturesque Lake Garda

Travel tip:

For all its associations with Mussolini and his Nazi allies, the town of Salò on the banks of Lake Garda is an attractive resort known for having the longest promenade on the lake.  The main sights  in Salò are the Duomo di Santa Maria Annunziata, which was rebuilt in late Gothic style in the 15th century and the Palazzo della Magnifica Patria, which houses an exhibition of important historical documents. There is also MuSa, il Museo di Salò, which opened in 2015 in la Chiesa di Santa Giustina in Via Brunati, which has exhibitions about the history of the town, including its brief period as a republic.  Mussolini’s home during the brief life of the Republic of Salò is now the Grand Hotel Feltrinelli in Via Rimembranza in Gargnano, a short distance along the coast of the lake.

Also on this day:

1626: The consecration of St Peter’s Basilica in Rome

1630: The birth of Holy Roman Empress Eleonora Gonzaga

1804: The birth of general and statesman Alfonso Ferrero La Marmora

1849: The birth of builder and architect Stefano Cardu

1891: The birth of architect and designer Gio Ponti

1906: The birth of publisher Gianni Mazzocchi

1911: The birth of poet Attilio Bertolucci

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