27 November

Senesino - operatic castrato

Sienese singer who worked with composer Handel

The acclaimed contralto castrato singer Senesino, who enjoyed a long professional relationship with the composer George Frideric Handel, died on this day in 1758 in Siena.  During the 18th century, when opera’s popularity was at its height, the castrati singers - male singers castrated as boys to preserve their prepubescent vocal range - were the highest paid members of the cast and the likes of Carlo Broschi, who sang under the stage name Farinelli, Giovanni Carestini (“Cusanino”), Gaetano Majorano ("Caffarelli") and Gaspare Pacchierotti were the genre’s first superstars.  Senesino could be added to that list.  When he made his first appearance for Handel in his three-act opera Radamisto in 1720 his salary was reported as between 2000 and 3000 guineas, which today would be worth around £250,000 to £365,000 (€280,000-€400,000).  Born Francesco Bernardi in 1686, Senesino took his name from his home town, Siena. His father was a barber in the Tuscan city.  He joined the choir of Siena’s Duomo - the Cattedrale di Santa Maria Assunta - in 1695 and was castrated at the comparatively late age of 13.  Read more…

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Jacopo Sansovino – architect

Death of the designer praised by Palladio

Jacopo d’Antonio Sansovino, the sculptor and architect renowned for his works around Piazza San Marco, died on this day in 1570 in Venice.  He designed the Libreria Sansoviniana - also known as the Biblioteca Marciana - in the Piazzetta, which was later praised by the architect Andrea Palladio as ‘the finest building erected since antiquity’.  Sansovino had been born Jacopo Tatti in 1486 in Florence and was apprenticed to the sculptor Andrea Sansovino, whose surname he subsequently adopted.  He was commissioned to make a marble sculpture of St James for the Duomo and a Bacchus, which is now in the Bargello in Florence.  However, his designs for sculptures to adorn the façade of the Church of San Lorenzo were rejected by Michelangelo, who was in charge of the scheme.  In 1529 Sansovino became chief architect to the Procurators of San Marco, making him one of the most influential artists in Venice.  His first Venetian building was the Palazzo Corner della Ca’ Grande, a huge classical palace for one of the richest families in Venice.  Sansovino designed the Loggetta and its sculptures adjoining the Campanile and statues for the Basilica of San Marco. He also helped rebuild many of the churches and palaces in Venice.  Read more…

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Horace - Roman poet

Writer who ‘seized the day’ and left his vivid account of it

Quintus Horatius Flaccus, better known as Horace, died on this day in 8 BC in Rome.  He had become a leading poet during the reign of the Emperor Augustus and acquired a farm near Rome which he made famous through his poetry.  His Odes and his more informal Satires and verse Epistles vividly portrayed contemporary Roman society, with the background themes of love, friendship and philosophy.  Horace’s career coincided with Rome’s momentous change from a republic to an empire and he became a spokesman for the new regime.  He is said to have revealed far more about himself and his way of life in his writings than any other poet in antiquity. His most famous two words are ‘carpe diem’ – taken from his first book of Odes – which are usually translated as ‘seize the day’.  Horace was born in 65 BC in Venusia in southern Italy, a town that lay on a trade route between Apulia and Basilicata. Horace’s father had been a slave but had managed to gain his freedom and improve his social position.  He spent money on his son’s education and eventually took him to Rome to find him the best school.  At the age of 19 Horace went to Athens to enrol in the Academy founded by Plato.  Read more…

Roberto Mancini - footballer and manager

Skilful player now highly successful coach

Roberto Mancini, a former Italy player who went on to become head coach of the Italian national team, was born on this day in Iesi in Marche in 1964.  Roberto Mancini enjoyed huge success with Internazionale in Italy and Manchester City in England.  Mancini, an elegant and creative forward, was capped 36 times by Italy between 1984 and 1994.  After a highly successful playing career, in which he was part of title-winning teams at Sampdoria and Lazio, he enjoyed immediate success as a manager, winning the Coppa Italia in his first season as Fiorentina boss in 2000. He repeated the feat in his second season at his next club, Lazio.  Mancini then made his mark emphatically at Internazionale, guiding the Milan club to a club record three consecutive Serie A titles, as well as winning the Coppa Italia and the Supercoppa (a pre-season match between the Serie A champions and the Coppa Italia winners) twice. This made him the club's most successful manager for 30 years.  While at Inter, he also set a Serie A record by winning 17 consecutive matches.  He was out of football for a year after being dismissed by Inter in 2008, despite his domestic success.  Read more…

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Gianni Vernetti – politician and writer

Ecologist who now provides support for emerging economies

Former centre-left politician Gianni Vernetti was born on this day in 1960 in Turin, the capital city of the Piedmont region of Italy.  While serving in the Chamber of Deputies of the Italian parliament he promoted initiatives on renewable energies and, after he was elected to the Senate, he served as Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in Romano Prodi’s government between 2006 and 2008.  Vernetti is married to the television journalist Laura De Donato and they have four children.  In 1985, Vernetti graduated in architecture from the University of Turin and in 1989 obtained a PhD in urban ecology at the University of Milan. For 10 years, between 1985 and 1995, he worked as an architect and urban planner.  As the child of politically active parents - his father, a philosophy professor and ex-partisan and his mother, an architect, were both former members of the Italian Communist Party - it was always likely he would enter politics himself.   Vernetti was a student protester in the late 1970s and founder-member of the anti-nuclear committee of the town of Trino Vercellese in Piedmont, later becoming a founder-member of the Federation of Italian Greens.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: The World of the Castrati: The History of an Extraordinary Operatic Phenomenon, by Patrick Barbier

For two centuries, the castrati were the darlings of the operatic stage. They enjoyed the adulation of European society, were patronised by royalty and were the pop stars of their era. How did the phenomenon come about? Why were boys deprived of their manhood to satisfy the eccentric taste of a baroque society that demanded that its heroes should sing with female voices? Entertaining, authoritative, as dazzling as its subject, this comprehensive study looks at every aspect of their lives - from their social origins, rigorous training, brilliant careers and their often lonely and poverty-stricken old age. Farinelli, Carestini, Bernardi... the names still hold the glamour that surrounded them and they live again in the pages of The World of the Castrati as vibrant, fascinating and enigmatic as ever. Illustrated with rare archive paintings and engravings this is a fitting celebration of the artistry of one of the strangest episodes in operatic history.

Born in Nantes, Patrick Barbier is professor of music history at the West Catholic University in Angers. He specialises in the history of opera. He is the author of many books, including Venice: The Enchanted Mirror and The World of the Castrati.

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26 November

NEW - Irma Marchiani - partisan

Resistance heroine honoured with medal for valour

Irma Marchiani, who was one of only a small number of women to achieve promotion to a leadership role in the Italian Resistance movement in WW2, died on this day in 1944 in the town of Pavullo nel Frignano in the Apennine mountains, about 50km (31 miles) south of the city of Modena.  Along with three other partisans, Marchiani was shot dead by a firing squad, having a few days earlier been captured by a German patrol as they tried to cross enemy lines. She was 33 years old. Posthumously awarded a Gold Medal for Military Valour by the postwar Italian government, wrote a poignant letter to his sister, Palmyra, shortly before she was killed, in which she said she would die ‘sure that I have done everything possible for freedom to triumph’.  Marchiani was born in Florence, on February 6, 1911. Her father Adamberto was a railway worker with strong anti-Fascist views who would regularly participate in industrial action aimed at achieving better living conditions for his fellow workers.  After taking part in a large-scale insurrection in June 1914, marked by multiple riots and strikes, Adamberto was given a transfer from Florence to La Spezia in Liguria, seemingly as punishment for his role in the unrest. Read more…

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Amelita Galli-Curci - soprano

Singer’s beautiful voice lives on thanks to early recordings

Amelita Galli-Curci, one of the most popular Italian opera singers and recording artists of the early 20th century, died on this day in 1963.  Galli-Curci was a ‘coloratura’ soprano and her voice has been described as ‘florid, vibrant, agile and able to perform trills.’  Although she was largely self-taught her voice was much admired and it has been claimed she was encouraged to become an opera singer by composer Pietro Mascagni, who was a family friend.  She was born Amelita Galli in Milan in 1881 and studied the piano at the Milan Conservatory, which is in the centre of the city close to the Duomo. She made her stage debut as a soprano at Trani in 1906, singing Gilda in Verdi’s Rigoletto. She was widely acclaimed and her career took off from there.  In 1908 she married an Italian nobleman, the Marchese Luigi Curci and she subsequently attached his surname to hers. She remained known as Amelita Galli-Curci even after they divorced.  She sang in just two performances of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lamermoor with Enrico Caruso in Buenos Aires in 1915 but they went on to make wonderful recordings together.  Read more…

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Charles Forte - businessman and hotelier

Multi-billion pound empire started with a single café

Businessman Charles Forte - later Sir Charles and then Baron Forte of Ripley - was born Carmine Forte in the hamlet of Mortale in the Frosinone province of southern Lazio on this day in 1908.  Forte was most famous for his hotels empire, which once numbered more than 800 properties ranging from Travelodge motels to the high-end luxury of the Grosvenor House in London and the George V in Paris.  Starting with a single milk bar in London, opened in 1935, he grew a business that became so vast that, when it changed hands 61 years later, it was valued at £3.9 billion.  Charles Forte was brought up largely in Scotland, where his family emigrated in 1911 after his father, Rocco, decided to follow the lead of his brother by abandoning farming in his impoverished homeland to try his luck in the catering business abroad.   Rocco ran a café and ice cream parlour in Alloa, a town in central Scotland about an hour's drive north-east of Glasgow and a similar distance to the north-west of Edinburgh.  Charles went to school in Alloa and nearby Dumfries before completing his education at the Mamiani High School in Rome.  Read more…

Giorgio Cini - heroic entrepreneur

Name lives on in cultural life of Venice

Giorgio Cini, the man whose name was given to a major cultural institution on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice was born on this day in 1918 in Rome.  The eldest child of Vittorio Cini, who in the early 20th century was one of Italy’s wealthiest industrialists, and the celebrated silent movie actress Lyda Borelli, Giorgio took on an entrepreneurial role in his father’s businesses, which encompassed a broad range of interests, in the financial and insurance sector, steel and electrical, maritime and tourism. Vittorio was born in Ferrara, owned a castle in Monselice near Padua, but adopted Venice as his home and devoted much of his energy to enhancing the wealth of the city. A key figure in the development of the port of Marghera, he was a close friend and business partner of Giuseppe Volpi, the businessman and politician who founded the Venice Film Festival.  Giorgio’s life was tragically cut short when he was killed in a plane crash in 1949 at the age of just 30, shortly after taking off from the small airport of Saint-Cassien near Cannes, where he had been with his fiancée, the American-born actress Merle Oberon.  Read more…

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Letizia Moratti – politician and businesswoman

First woman to be Mayor of Milan and head of Rai

Letizia Moratti, one of Europe’s best-known businesswomen and a successful politician, was born on this day in 1949 in Milan.  Married to the oil magnate Gianmarco Moratti, she was chair of the state television network Rai between 1994 and 1996, a minister in former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s second and third administrations, and Mayor of Milan between 2006 and 2011.  Born Letizia Maria Brichetto Arnaboldi, her antecedents are the Brichetto family from Genoa, who founded the first insurance brokerage company in Italy, and the noble Arnaboldi family from Milan.  Her grandmother, Mimona Brichetto Arnaboldi, was a society hostess in the 1930s and an outspoken opponent of Fascism.  Letizia attended a private school in Milan and had classical dance classes at the Carla Strauss Academy in the Brera district.  She attended the University of Milan and graduated in political science.  At around the same time, she met Gianmarco Moratti, an oil contractor whose brother, Massimo, a petrochemicals tycoon, is the former chairman of Internazionale.  With funding from the Moratti family, Letizia launched her first business at the age of 25.  Read more…

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Enrico Bombieri – mathematician

Brilliant professor who won top award in his field at just 34

The mathematician Enrico Bombieri, one of the world’s leading authorities on number theory and analysis, which has practical application in the world of encryption and data transmission, was born on this day in 1940 in Milan.  Bombieri, who is also an accomplished painter, won the Fields Medal, an international award for outstanding discoveries in mathematics regarded in the field of mathematical sciences as equivalent to a Nobel Prize, when he was a 34-year-old professor at the University of Pisa in 1974.  As well as analytic number theory, he has become renowned for his expertise in other areas of highly advanced mathematics including algebraic geometry, univalent functions, theory of several complex variables, partial differential equations of minimal surfaces, and the theory of finite groups.  Mathematics textbooks now refer to several discoveries named after him in his own right or with fellow researchers, including the Bombieri-Lang conjecture, the Bombieri norm and the Bombieri–Vinogradov theorem.  He has been described as a "problem-oriented" scholar - one who tries to solve deep problems rather than to build theories.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: A Civil War: A History of the Italian Resistance, by Claudio Pavone. Translated by Peter Levy.

A Civil War is a history of the wartime Italian Resistance, recounted by a historian who, when only a boy, took part in the struggle against Mussolini’s fascist Republic. Since its publication in Italy, Claudio Pavone’s masterwork has become indispensable to anyone seeking to understand this period and its continuing importance for the nation’s identity. Pavone casts a sober eye on his protagonists’ ethical and ideological motivations. He uncovers a multi-layered conflict, in which class antagonisms, patriotism and political ideals all played a part. A clear understanding of this complexity allows him to explain many details of the post-war transition, as well as the legacy of the Resistance for modern Italy. In addition to being a monumental work of scholarship, A Civil War is a folk history, capturing events, personalities and attitudes that were on the verge of slipping entirely out of recollection to the detriment of Italy’s understanding of itself and its past.

Claudio Pavone was an Italian partisan, historian and archivist. He was associate professor of contemporary history at the University of Pisa from 1980 to 1991 and president from 1995 to 1999 of the Italian Society for the Study of Contemporary History.

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Irma Marchiani - partisan

Resistance heroine honoured with medal for valour

Irma Marchiani was deputy
commander of her battalion

Irma Marchiani, who was one of only a small number of women to achieve promotion to a leadership role in the Italian Resistance movement in WW2, died on this day in 1944 in the town of Pavullo nel Frignano in the Apennine mountains, about 50km (31 miles) south of the city of Modena.

Along with three other partisans, Marchiani was shot dead by a firing squad, having a few days earlier been captured by a German patrol as they tried to cross enemy lines. She was 33 years old.

Posthumously awarded a Gold Medal for Military Valour by the postwar Italian government, wrote a poignant letter to his sister, Palmyra, shortly before she was killed, in which she said she would die ‘sure that I have done everything possible for freedom to triumph’.

Marchiani was born in Florence, on February 6, 1911. Her father Adamberto was a railway worker with strong anti-Fascist views who would regularly participate in industrial action aimed at achieving better living conditions for his fellow workers. 

After taking part in a large-scale insurrection in June 1914, marked by multiple riots and strikes, Adamberto was given a transfer from Florence to La Spezia in Liguria, seemingly as punishment for his role in the unrest. 

During Irma Marchiani’s school years, violent acts committed by supporters of Benito Mussolini’s Italian Fascist Party became commonplace, with squads of Blackshirt thugs allowed to pursue their agenda with little regard for the rule of law. They set fire to premises used by groups associated with their Socialist enemies and handed savage beatings to their opponents. 

Marchiani was familiar with the rugged territory
around Sestola in the Modena Apennines

Against this backdrop, her father was dismissed from his job in La Spezia in 1924 and Irma grew increasingly to hate what her country had become. In memory of her grandfather, who had fought for Italy’s freedom in a different era, she would often wear on her chest the five-pointed star of Garibaldi's volunteers, of which he had been a member.

At school, Irma had excelled at drawing but her father’s sudden unemployment meant she had to give up her education and find a job. She first found work as a milliner, then as an embroiderer and window dresser. She had ambitions to design clothes of her own and in the 1930s enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts in Carrara so that she could attend a course in anatomical drawing.

Throughout this time, she suffered regularly from bronchial disorders and every year would spend holidays in the Modena Apennines, breathing the clean air and attending a clinic in the village of Sestola. 

She happened to be there in September, 1943, when Italy’s surrender to the Allies prompted Nazi Germany to invade the country from the north. Having acquired a knowledge of the territory through her frequent visits, Irma recalled her grandfather’s support for Garibaldi and decided she too would fight for Italy’s freedom. Opting to stay in the mountains rather than return to La Spezia, she joined up with the fledgling resistance movement.

After some months working as a courier, conveying vital messages as the various resistance groups tried to co-ordinate their activities, she joined the Garibaldi Roveda brigade and was assigned to the Matteotti battalion. She was known by the nom de guerre "Anty".

In August, 1944, while fighting near Montefiorino, she was arrested, captured while bravely attempting to help a seriously wounded fellow partisan get to a field hospital. She was imprisoned with a view to being deported to Germany.

Irma Marchiani was inspired by
her grandfather to fight for freedom

Determined to continue to fight against the occupation of her homeland, she escaped and managed to rejoin her group. 

Many of the leaders of the resistance movement were communists but for all their supposedly progressive political ideals, the hierarchy was almost exclusively male and it was rare for a female to have a prominent position. Yet Irma’s bravery and knowledge impressed her colleagues and she was soon promoted, first to commissioner and then deputy battalion commander. 

It was her bravery that proved to be her downfall. During fighting in Benedello, she remained alone in occupied territory, again seeking to guide wounded partisans to safety. On the morning of 12 November, while trying to cross enemy lines, she was spotted and was captured by a German patrol along with three fellow fighters.

They were taken to the prison of Pavullo nel Frignano and subjected to questioning under torture. After 15 days of detention, as night fell on November 26, the four were taken outside the prison and executed. 

Alongside Marchiani, 27-year-old Domenico "Pisolo" Guidani, 28-year-old Renzo “Remo” Costi and 17-year-old Gaetano “Balilla” Ruggeri were also shot. Today, there is a monument bearing their names set into a wall that marks the spot where they fell.

Another monument commemorating the trio stands at the entrance to the Ducal Park of Pavullo nel Frignano.

Irma’s letter to her sister came to light in May My Blood Serve, a book written about the men and women of the Italian Resistance by the journalist Aldo Cazzullo, published in 2015. It read:

“My beloved Pally, These are the last moments of my life. Beloved Pally I tell you: greet and kiss everyone who will remember me. Believe me, I have never done anything that could offend our name. I felt the call of the homeland for which I fought: now I am here, soon I will no longer be here, I die sure that I have done everything possible for freedom to triumph. Kisses and kisses from your Paggetto. I would like to be buried in Sestola.”

Eight years after her death, Irma’s Gold Medal for Military Valour was pinned to the chest of her brother, Pietro Marchiani, at a ceremony in La Spezia in June, 1952.

The municipalities of Pavullo nel Frignano, Rome, Modena, Savignano sul Panaro, Livorno and Ciampino all have named a street after her.

In Pavullo nel Frignano, the monument outside the Ducal Park is marked with a plaque that bears the words: 

“Valiant partisan ..... she participated with indomitable courage in the battles of Montefiorino and Benedello did her utmost in loving assistance to the wounded ..... Arrested and sentenced to deportation, she managed to escape, falling back into the hands of the enemy, fearlessly facing death.”

The pretty fishing village of Portovenere is
just a short distance from La Spezia

Travel tip:

The port town of La Spezia, where Irma Marchiani grew up, is home to Italy's largest naval base. It is often overlooked as a travel destination because of the proximity of the tourist hot spots of the Cinque Terre coastline but offers an affordable alternative base for touring the area as well as an attractive destination in its own right. It is one of Italy’s busiest ports, yet the narrow streets of the old city are deeply atmospheric and have plenty to interest visitors, with a wealth of good restaurants showing off the best Ligurian cuisine. La Spezia is a point of departure for visiting Lerici, Portovenere and the Cinque Terre by boat. The recently-restored Castle of San Giorgio, the 13th century Church of Our Lady of the Assumption and a number of Art Nouveau villas are all worth visiting. The Gulf of La Spezia is known as the Gulf of the Poets because of its associations with the English romantic poets Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley.

The Castle of Montecuccolo has stood guard
over Pavullo nel Frignano since the 1600s

Travel tip:

In the heart of Frignano Regional Park, the town of Pavullo nel Frignano was once the main Roman stronghold in the Modena Apennines, while it is also home to the medieval Castle of Montecuccolo, birthplace of the 17th century condottiero Raimondo Montecuccoli, which stands well preserved despite the area suffering extensive damage during World War II due to its proximity to the German defensive positions of the Gothic Line.  As well as the mediaeval centre, it is well worth visiting the Ducal Palace and Park, the Parish Church of St Bartholomew, the Church of St Francis of Assisi and the modern art gallery. The surrounding countryside offers the Sassoguidano nature reserve, mountain-bike trails, opportunities for trekking, and an equestrian centre.

Also on this day: 

1908: The birth of hotelier and businessman Charles Forte

1918: The birth of entrepreneur Giorgio Cini

1940: The birth of mathematician Enrico Bombieri

1949: The birth of politician and businesswoman Letizia Moratti

1963: The death of soprano Amelita Galli-Curci

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25 November

Stefano Boeri - architect

Milan urban planner famous for Vertical Forest

The architect Stefano Boeri, a specialist in environmentally sustainable developments and best known for his Bosco Verticale - Vertical Forest - project in Milan, was born on this day in 1956 in Milan.  The Bosco Verticale consists of two residential tower blocks in the Isola neighbourhood in the north of the city, just beyond the Porta Garibaldi railway station.  The two towers, one of 111m (364 ft), the other of 76m (249 ft), incorporate 8,900 sqm (96,000 sq ft) of terraces that are home to approximately 800 trees, 5,000 shrubs and 11,000 perennial plants.  The vegetation - the equivalent of what might be found in three hectares of woodland but with a footprint of just 3,000 sqm - mitigates against urban pollution, absorbing dust and carbon dioxide while producing oxygen. The trees also provide natural climate control for the inhabitants, shading the interior from sun in the summer and blocking cold winds in the winter.  Boeri incorporated other features to make the building self-sufficient, generating energy from solar panels and using filtered wastewater to irrigate the plants.  Construction of the towers began in late 2009 and the project was completed in 2014.  Read more…

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Rosanna Schiaffino – actress

Dramatic life of Italian screen goddess

Film star Rosanna Schiaffino, who for more than 20 years, between the 1950s and the 1970s, starred opposite the most famous actors of the period, was born on this day in 1939 in Genoa in Liguria.  Schiaffino worked for some of Italian cinema’s greatest directors, but in the 1980s turned her back on the cinema world to marry the playboy and steel industry heir, Giorgio Falck, entering a relationship that descended into acrimony after she was diagnosed with breast cancer.  Born into a wealthy family, Schiaffino was encouraged in her acting ambitions by her mother, who paid for her to go to a drama school.  She entered beauty contests and won the title of Miss Liguria when she was just 14.  She also took some modelling jobs and her photograph appeared in many magazines. She was spotted by the film producer Franco Cristaldi, who paired her with Marcello Mastroianni in Un ettaro di cielo (Piece of the Sky) in 1959.  Schiaffino made her name in her second film for Cristaldi, La Sfida (The Challenge), directed by Francesco Rosi, in which she gave a powerful, but sensitive performance as a Neapolitan girl, inspired by the real life character of Pupetta Maresca, a former beauty queen who became a famous Camorra figure.  Read more…

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Giorgio Faletti – writer and entertainer

Comedian who became best-selling novelist

Giorgio Faletti, who became a best-selling thriller writer, was born on this day in 1950 in Asti in Piedmont.  He was a successful actor, comedian, and singer-songwriter before he turned his hand to writing fiction. His first thriller, I Kill (Io uccido), sold more than four million copies.  Faletti’s books have now been published in 25 languages throughout Europe, South America, China, Japan, Russia and the US.  Faletti graduated from law school but then began a career as a comedian at the Milanese Club ‘Derby’.  In 1983 he made his debut on local television before appearing alongside the popular hostess and former actress, Raffaella Carrà, on RAI’s daytime game show, Pronto, Raffaella? He was cast as a comedian in the popular variety show, Drive In, which was followed by other television successes.  He wrote the soundtrack for a TV series in which he was one of the main actors and then released an album of his songs.  In 1992 he took part in the Sanremo Music Festival with Orietta Berti with the song Rumba di tango.  In 1994, performing his own song, Signor tenente, he came second at Sanremo.  Read more…

Bruno Tonioli - dance show judge

Dancer and choreographer who starred in Strictly Come Dancing

Dancer, choreographer and television dance show judge Bruno Tonioli was born on this day in 1955 in Ferrara in north-east Italy.  Tonioli was one of the judging panel of Strictly Come Dancing on British TV and on its US equivalent Dancing With the Stars, which required him to divide his time between London and New York when seasons overlap.  He began his show business career in the 1980s as a member of the Paris-based dance company La Grande Eugène before moving into the music industry as a choreographer.  Among the artists he has worked with are Tina Turner, Sting, Elton John, the Rolling Stones, Freddie Mercury, Sinitta, Boy George, Dead or Alive, and Duran Duran.  Tonioli has also worked on numerous films and television shows including Little Voice, The Gathering Storm, Dancin' thru the Dark and Enigma.  He also has a number of acting credits, including the role of Peppino, manservant to Michael Gambon's Oscar Wilde in the BBC production Oscar.  Tonioli appeared as himself in the movie version of the BBC comedy Absolutely Fabulous.  Renowned for his flamboyantly wild gestures and amusingly extravagant comments, Tonioli became a member of the Strictly Come Dancing team on the show's launch in 2004.  Read more…

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Amalfi destroyed by tsunami

Quake beneath Tyrrhenian Sea sparked killer wave

The former maritime republic of Amalfi, which once had a population of 70,000 people, was effectively wiped out when a massive earthquake that occurred under the Tyrrhenian Sea on this day in 1343 sparked a devastating tsunami along the coast of southern Italy.  The tremor itself caused deaths but not on the scale of the tsunami that followed, as a stretch of coastline from north of Naples to south of the Cilento National Park bore the brunt of a huge killer wave.  The towns of Bussanto and Blanda, near the present-day resorts of Sapri and Maratea, were among communities that disappeared completely, while Amalfi and Minori on what we know now as the Amalfi Coast were decimated.  Amalfi’s harbour and all the boats in it were destroyed, while the lower town fell into the sea. Where there had once been a thriving city, only a village remained, the population of which has never grown much beyond about 6,000 people. Its days as a significant maritime power were over.  Salerno and Naples suffered considerable damage, although the death toll was never recorded, it can be assumed it ran into tens of thousands.  Read more…

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Pope John XXIII

Farmer’s son went on to become ‘the Good Pope’

Pope John XXIII was born on this day in 1881 at Sotto il Monte near Bergamo.  He was originally named Angelo Roncalli and was part of a large farming family but he went on to become a much loved Pope and respected world leader.  Angelo was tutored by a local priest before entering the Seminary in Bergamo at the age of 12. He went on to study theology in Rome and rose to become Cardinal Patriarch of Venice before being elected Pope in 1958.  His religious studies had been interrupted by a spell in the Italian army, but he was ordained in 1904. He served as secretary to the Bishop of Bergamo for nine years before becoming an army chaplain in World War One.  After the war he worked in Bulgaria, Turkey and Greece on behalf of the church helping to locate and repatriate prisoners of war.  In 1944 he was appointed nuncio to Paris to help with the post war effort in France. He became a Cardinal in 1953 and expected to spend his last years serving the church in Venice.  But when he was elected Pope by his fellow cardinals in the conclave of 20 October 1958, it was a turning point in the church’s history.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Green Obsession: Trees Towards Cities, Humans Towards Forests, by Stefano Boeri

Green Obsession traces the long path that architect Stefano Boeri and his studio - Stefano Boeri Architetti - have followed in the last 15 years of practice, aiming at the redefinition of the relationship between city and nature. The book follows a discursive thread, alternating dialogues and scientific essays by some of the main protagonists who have contributed to widening the perspective on this subject, helping to raise awareness while protecting the world and its biodiversity.  Cities have contributed for centuries to the promotion of some of humanity's greatest ideas and must now be seen as among the principal players in the environmental debate, at the forefront of any policy tackling and countering - possibly reversing - climate change. Even today one of the most significant technologies capable of absorbing carbon dioxide and restoring our environment is photosynthesis. Planting trees, in addition to protecting existing natural areas and biodiversity, together with de-carbonization, renewable energies, digitalization, smart mobility and the circular economy could be the set of strategies necessary to tackle climate change. Green Obsession offers a path to be taken, a hard but still necessary paradigm shift - even for architecture and urbanism - that aims to give a voice to this much needed ecological transition. Now more than ever, it is essential to act together as separate individuals and professionals, joining the cause as members of the global community with a shared environmental strategy. We all have to open the era of a new alliance between nature and the city.

Architect and urban planner Stefano Boeri has been a professor at the Politecnico in Milan and visiting professor at several international universities, including Harvard University's Graduate School of Design and the Strelka Institute in Moscow. The author of several books and publications, he was Councilor for Culture in Milan from 2011 to 2013.

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