6 January

First Montessori school opens in Rome

Educationalist Maria Montessori launches Casa dei Bambini

The first of what would become recognised across the world as Montessori schools opened its doors in Rome on this day in 1907.  The Casa dei Bambini, in the working class neighbourhood of San Lorenzo, was launched by the physician and educationalist Maria Montessori.  Montessori - the first woman in Italy to qualify as a physician - had enjoyed success with her teaching methods while working with children as a volunteer at Rome University's psychiatric clinic.  She was convinced that the techniques she had used to help children with learning difficulties and more serious mental health issues could be adapted for the benefit of all children.  The Casa dei Bambini came into being after Montessori had been invited to work on a housing project in San Lorenzo, where her responsibility was to oversee the care and education of the project's children while their parents were at work.  Situated in Via dei Marsi, it catered for between 50 and 60 children aged between two and seven.  The methods Montessori employed, which included many practical activities as well as more conventional lessons.  Read more…

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Silvana Pampanini - actress and singer

Postwar pin-up who preceded Loren and Lollobrigida

The actress and singer Silvana Pampanini, who starred in more than 50 films and was Italian cinema’s biggest box office draw in the 1950s, died on this day in 2016 in Rome.  She was 90 years old and had been hospitalised for some weeks following abdominal surgery. Her funeral took place at the Basilica di Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, in the Esquilino district to the southeast of the city centre.  Born in Rome into a family of Venetian heritage in 1925, she had ambitions to become an opera singer, inspired by the career of her aunt, Rosetta Pampanini, a noted soprano who sang at many of the world’s great opera houses.  She enrolled at the renowned Conservatorio Santa Cecilia in Rome, where her male teacher was so struck by her physical beauty that without her knowledge he entered her for the 1946 Miss Italy contest, the first to be staged after the end of World War Two.  Though taken aback at first, Pampanini was a confident young woman and went along with it. Indeed, the audience were so appreciative of her curvy figure, green eyes and long legs that when the jury awarded the title to Rossana Martini, another future actress, there was a near riot and police had to be called to restore order.  Read more…

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Baldassare Verazzi - painter

Piedmontese artist famous for image of uprising in Milan

The painter Baldassare Verazzi, whose most famous work depicts a scene from the anti-Austrian uprising known as The Five Days of Milan, was born on this day in 1819 in Caprezzo, a tiny village in Piedmont, 120km (75 miles) from Turin in the hills above Lake Maggiore.  Something of a revolutionary in that he was an active supporter of the Risorgimento, it is supposed that he was in Milan in 1848 when citizens rose up against the ruling forces of the Austrian Empire, which controlled much of northern Italy.  The Cinque Giornate di Milano, in March of that year, comprised five days of street fighting that eventually resulted in the Austrian garrison being expelled from the city, marking the start of the First Italian War of Independence.  Verazzi’s painting, which is today on display at the Museum of the Risorgimento in the Castello Sforza in Milan, is entitled Episodio delle Cinque Giornate (Combattimento a Palazzo Litta), and shows three figures sheltering behind a barricade while another aims a rifle over the barricade, presumably in the direction of Austrian troops.  Born into a family of humble origins, Verazzi studied at the Brera Academy in Milan.  Read more…

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Adriano Celentano – singer and actor

Italy’s biggest-selling recording artist of all time

The pop singer and movie actor Adriano Celentano, who is estimated to have sold in the region of 200 million records in a career spanning 60 years, was born on this day in 1938 in Milan.  One of the most important and influential figures in Italian pop culture, Celentano enjoys such enduring popularity that when he gave his first live performance for 18 years at the Arena di Verona in 2012, screened on the Canale 5 television channel, it attracted an audience of more than nine million viewers.  He has recorded more than 40 albums, among which, Tutti le migliori (All The Best) reviving his collaboration with another veteran Italian star, Mina, was released in 2017 and included new material.  Celentano’s biggest individual hits include Stai lontana di me (Stay away from me, 1962), Si è spento il sole (The sun has gone out, 1962), Pregherò (I will pray, 1962), Il ragazzo della via Gluck (The boy from Gluck Street, 1966), La coppia più bello del mondo (The most beautiful couple in the world, 1967), Azzurro (Blue, 1968), Sotto le lenzuola (Under the sheets, 1971), Ti avrò (I will have you, 1978) and Susanna (1984).  Read more…

Piersanti Mattarella - assassination victim

President’s brother assumed to have been killed by Mafia

The politician Piersanti Mattarella, whose brother, Sergio, is the current President of Italy, was shot dead on this day in 1980.  The 44-year-old Christian Democrat, who was president of the regional government of Sicily, was about to drive to Epiphany mass from his home in Via della Libertà in Palermo when a gunman or gunmen appeared at the side of his car.  Mattarella was shot at point blank range in front of his wife, Irma, their daughter Maria, and his wife’s mother, who were passengers in his Fiat 132. Sergio, at that time a lecturer at the University of Palermo, was called by his nephew, Bernardo, who had not been in the car. He was one of the first on the scene after the shooting and took his brother to hospital. His efforts were in vain; Piersanti was already dead.  Yet the identity of his killers was never established and doubts surrounding the motives for the attack never completely removed.  There was every reason to suspect Piersanti had been the victim of a Mafia assassination because of his drive to clean up political corruption on the island.  Read more…

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Giuseppe Sammartini – oboe player and composer

Musician could make oboe sound like the human voice

Giuseppe Sammartini, a brilliant oboist and composer during the late baroque and early classical era, was born on this day in 1695 in Milan.  The musician - named Giuseppe Francesco Gaspare Melchiorre Baldassare Sammartini in full - spent many years living and working in London, where he was hailed as ‘the greatest oboist the world had ever known.’ He also worked as a music master for Frederick, Prince of Wales and his wife Augusta, when Frederick was heir to the British throne. Frederick was the eldest son of King George II, but he died before his father. Frederick’s own eldest son later became King George III.  Giuseppe’s younger brother, Giovanni Battista Sammartini, also became a well-known composer and oboe player. The brothers had both been given oboe lessons by their French father, Alexis Saint-Martin.  Giuseppe Sammartini, who could also play the flute and recorder, was the oboe player at a church in Milan in about 1717.  He then became oboist at the Teatro Regio Ducale, an opera house in Milan, in 1720.  Sammartini went to live and work in Brussels in 1729 but then moved to London, where he was a great success.  Read more…

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Befana - Italy’s January 6 tradition

A good witch who traditionally sweeps away problems

Children in Italy will be waking up on this day hoping to find that Befana has left them some presents while they have been sleeping.  Although Christmas is almost over, the eve of January 6 is when a kind witch is supposed to visit the good children in Italy and leave them presents.  Traditionally, children who have been naughty are supposed to receive only a lump of coal and those who have been stupid are supposed to receive only a carrot.  But in reality, many children throughout Italy will expect good presents from Befana today.  Befana is also sometimes referred to as La Vecchia (the old woman) and La Strega (the witch). But she is supposed to be a similar character to Saint Nicholas or Santa Claus.  It is believed her name derives from La Festa dell’Epifania (the feast of the Epiphany).  Befana is usually portrayed in illustrations as an old lady riding a broomstick, wearing a black shawl and covered in soot because she enters the children’s homes through the chimney.  Another tradition is that Befana sweeps the floor of the house before she leaves, symbolising the sweeping away of the problems of the previous year.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Maria Montessori: Her Life and Work, by E M Standing

Maria Montessori: Her Life and Work is important background reading for parents considering Montessori education for their children, as well as for those training to become Montessori teachers. The first woman to win a degree as a Doctor of Medicine in Italy in 1896, Maria Montessori's mission to improve children's education began in the slums of Rome in 1907, and continued throughout her lifetime. Her insights into the minds of children led her to develop prepared environments and other tools and devices that have come to characterize Montessori education today. Her influence in other countries has been profound and many of her teaching methods have been adopted by educators generally. Part biography and part exposition of her ideas, this engaging book reveals through her letters and personal diaries Maria Montessori's humility and delight in the success of her educational experiments and is an ideal introduction to the principles and practices of the greatest educational pioneer of the 20th century.  The new introduction to Maria Montessori: Her Life and Work, by Lee Havis, executive director of the International Montessori Society, discusses the changes that have taken place in Montessori education within recent years, while there is an updated appendix of Montessori periodicals, courses, societies, films, and teaching materials, and a revised bibliography of books by and about Maria Montessori.

Edwin Mortimer Standing (1887-1967) was a close friend and assistant to pioneering Italian educator Maria Montessori for more than 30 years. Born in Madagascar, Standing was educated at Cambridge University. After working as a tutor in India, Standing converted to Catholicism in 1923 and spent the next three decades directing Montessori teacher-training courses in Italy, India and the United Kingdom.

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5 January

Umberto Eco – novelist and semiotician

Prolific author became fascinated with signs and symbols

Academic and writer Umberto Eco was born on this day in 1932 in Alessandria in Piedmont.  Eco, who died in 2016, was best known for his mystery novel, The Name of the Rose - Il Nome della Rosa, which was first published in Italian in 1980, but he was also a respected expert on semiotics, the branch of linguistics concerned with signs and symbols.  Eco studied medieval literature and philosophy at the University of Turin and after graduating worked in television as well returning to lecture at the University of Turin. He was a visiting professor at a number of American universities and received honorary doctorates from universities in America and Serbia.  As well as producing fiction, he published books on medieval aesthetics, literary criticism, media culture, anthropology and philosophy. He also helped to found an important new approach in contemporary semiotics and to launch a journal on semiotics.  Eco set his first novel, The Name of the Rose, in a 14th century monastery with a Franciscan friar as the detective. The book has been described as ‘an intellectual mystery combining semiotics in fiction, biblical analysis, medieval studies and literary theory’.  Read more…

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Giuseppe Impastato - anti-Mafia activist

Son of mafioso was murdered for speaking out

Giuseppe Impastato, a political activist who was murdered by the Sicilian Mafia in 1978, was born on this day in 1948 in Cinisi, a coastal resort 36km (22 miles) west of Palermo which is now home to the city's Punta Raisi airport.  Also known as Peppino, Impastato was born into a Mafia family.  His father, Luigi, had been considered a significant enough figure in the criminal organisation to be sent into internal exile during the Fascist crackdown of the 1920s and was a close friend of the local Mafia boss, Gaetano Badalamenti.  Impastato had already begun to take an interest in left-wing political ideology when his uncle, Cesare Manzella, was blown up by a car bomb in 1963, the victim of a contract killing.  The murder had a profound effect on Impastato, then only 15, who denounced all his father stood for and left home.  He began to write, founding a left-wing newsletter, L'Idea Socialista, in 1965, and soon joined the Italian Socialist Party of Proletarian Unity (PSIUP).  He became the regular instigator of student and workers' protests during the late 1960s and led a number of anti-Mafia demonstrations.  Read more…

Dr Michele Navarra – physician and Mafia boss

Hospital doctor who headed Corleone clan

Michele Navarra, an extraordinary figure who became the leading physician in his home town of Corleone while simultaneously heading up one of the most notorious clans in the history of the Sicilian Mafia, was born on this day in 1905.  Dr Navarra was a graduate of the University of Palermo, where he studied engineering before turning to medicine, and became a captain in the Royal Italian Army. He could have had a comfortable and worthy career as a doctor.  Yet he developed a fascination with stories about his uncle, Angelo Gagliano, who until he was murdered when Navarra was a boy of about 10 years old had been a member of the Fratuzzi – the Brothers – a criminal organisation who leased agricultural land from absentee landlords and then sublet it to peasant farmers at exorbitant rates, enforcing their authority by extorting protection money, as well as by controlling the hiring of workers.  As the son of a land surveyor, Navarra already enjoyed privileges inaccessible to most of the population and his medical qualifications only further lifted his standing in the community. Somehow, though, it was not enough.  Read more…

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Severino Gazzelloni - flautist

Lead player with Rai orchestra considered a great of Italian music

The flautist Severino Gazzelloni, who for 30 years was the principal player of his instrument in the prestigious Rai National Symphony Orchestra but who had a repertoire that extended well beyond orchestral classical music, was born on this day in 1919 in Roccasecca, a town perched on a hillside in southern Lazio, about 130km (81 miles) south of Rome.  He was known for his versatility. In addition to his proficiency in classical flute pieces, Gazzelloni also excelled in jazz and 20th century avant-garde music. As such, many musicians and aficionados regard him as one of the finest flute players of all time.  Gazzelloni also taught others to master the flute. His notable pupils included the American jazz saxophonist Eric Dolphy and the Dutch classical flautist Abbie de Quant.  The son of a tailor in Roccasecca, Gazzelloni grew up in modest circumstances yet had music around him from a young age as his father played in a local band.  He taught himself music and became fascinated with the flute as an instrument, acquiring the technique to play it simply by practising for endless hours on his own.  By the age of seven, his father considered him good enough to sit alongside him in the band.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: The Name of the Rose, by Umberto Eco

The year is 1327. Franciscans in a wealthy Italian abbey are suspected of heresy, and Brother William of Baskerville arrives to investigate. When his delicate mission is suddenly overshadowed by seven bizarre deaths, Brother William turns detective. Who is killing monks in a great medieval abbey famed for its library - and why?  Umberto Eco's celebrated story combines elements of detective fiction, metaphysical thriller, post-modernist puzzle and historical novel in one of the few 20th-century books which can be described as genuinely unique.  William collects evidence, deciphers secret symbols and coded manuscripts, and digs into the eerie labyrinth of the abbey where extraordinary things are happening under the cover of night. A spectacular popular and critical success, The Name of the Rose is not only a narrative of a murder investigation but an astonishing chronicle of the Middle Ages.

Umberto Eco, who taught at the University of Bologna for much of his life, was an Italian philosopher, semiotician, novelist, cultural critic, and political and social commentator. In English, in addition to the The Name of the Rose, published in 1980, he is known for Foucault's Pendulum, his 1988 novel which touched on similar themes. 

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4 January

NEW - Jasmine Paolini - tennis star

Breakthrough year saw Tuscan soar in rankings

The tennis player Jasmine Paolini, whose outstanding 2024 season saw her match the highest world singles ranking attained by any Italian in the history of women’s tennis, was born on this day in 1996 in Castelnuovo di Garfagnana, an historic town around 45km (28 miles) north of the city of Lucca.  Having reached two Grand Slam finals, won her second career WTA 1000 title and helped the Italian squad become Billie Jean King Cup champions in the course of the year, Paolini climbed to No 4 in the world, equalling the achievement of the 2010 French Open champion Francesca Schiavone.  She also won a gold medal in doubles at the 2024 Paris Olympics, partnering Italy’s all-time leading women’s doubles player, Sara Errani. Having finished runner-up to world No 1 Iga Swiatek in the 2024 French Open final and to the Czech player Barbora Krejcikova on the Wimbledon grass five weeks later, Paolini’s next target is to win her first Grand Slam title.  Schiavone and Flavia Pennetta, who was US Open champion in 2015, are the only Italian women so far to win the singles title at one of tennis’s four Grand Slams - the Australian, French and US Opens, and the Wimbledon Championships.  Read more…

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Pino Daniele - singer and songwriter

Naples mourned star with flags at half-mast

The Neapolitan singer-songwriter Pino Daniele died on this day in 2015 in hospital in Rome.  Daniele, whose gift was to fuse his city’s traditional music with blues and jazz, suffered a heart attack after being admitted with breathing difficulties. Daniele, who had a history of heart problems, had been taken to Rome after falling ill at his holiday home in Tuscany.  On learning of his death, the Naples mayor Luigi de Magistris ordered that flags on municipal buildings in the city be flown at half-mast.  Born in 1955, Daniele grew up in a working class family in the Sanità neighbourhood of Naples, once a notorious hotbed of crime. His father worked at the docks.  As a musician, he was self-taught, mastering the guitar with no formal lessons and developing a unique voice, alternately soaring and soft, and gravelly to the point of sounding almost hoarse.  He named the great American jazz musicians Louis Armstrong and George Benson as his major influences but also drew deeply on the life, culture and traditions of his home city, which he loved.  His songs sometimes combined Italian, English and Naples dialect.  Read more…

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Gaetano Merola – conductor and impresario

Neapolitan who founded the San Francisco Opera

Gaetano Merola, a musician from Naples who emigrated to the United States and ultimately founded the San Francisco Opera, was born on this day in 1881.  Merola directed the company and conducted many performances for 30 years from its opening night in September 1923 until his death in August 1953.  He literally died doing what he loved, collapsing in the orchestra pit while conducting the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra during a concert at an outdoor amphitheatre in the city.  The son of a violinist at the Royal Court in Naples, Merola studied piano and conducting at the Conservatorio di San Pietro a Majella in Naples, graduating with honours at the age of 16.  Three years later he was invited to New York to work as assistant to Luigi Mancinelli, another Italian emigrant, born in Orvieto, who was a noted composer and cellist who was lead conductor of the New York Metropolitan Opera.  Demand for his services grew and he made regular guest appearances with companies across America and beyond, including a stint at Oscar Hammerstein’s London Opera House on the site of what is now the Peacock Theatre in Holborn.   Read more…

Carlo Levi – writer and painter

Author and doctor who highlighted poverty in southern Italy

The anti-Fascist writer, painter and doctor, Carlo Levi, died on this day in Rome in 1975.  He is best remembered for his book Christ Stopped at Eboli - Cristo si è fermato a Eboli - an account of the time he spent in political exile in a remote, impoverished part of Italy.  Levi was born in Turin in 1902. His father was a wealthy Jewish physician and Levi went to the University of Turin to study medicine after finishing school.  While at university he became active in politics and after graduating he turned his attention to painting.  But he never completely abandoned medicine and moved to Paris to continue his medical research while painting.  After returning to Italy, Levi founded an anti-Fascist movement in 1929. As a result he was arrested and sent into exile to a remote area of Italy called Lucania (now renamed Basilicata).  He encountered extreme poverty, which had been unknown in the north where he grew up. As well as writing and painting while he was in exile, he served as a doctor to help the poor villagers he lived among.  When he was released from his political exile he moved back to France but on his return to Italy he was arrested again.  Read more…

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Giovanni Battista Pergolesi – composer

Brief career of 'opera buffa' genius

Opera composer Giovanni Battista Pergolesi was born on this day in 1710 as Giovanni Battista Draghi, in Jesi, in what is now the province of Ancona.  He later acquired the name Pergolesi, the Italian word for the residents of Pergola in Marche, which had been the birthplace of his ancestors.  Pergolesi was the most important early composer of opera buffa - comic opera. He wrote a two-act buffa intermezzo for one of his serious operas, which later became a popular work in its own right.  He also wrote sacred music and his Stabat Mater, composed in 1736, has been used in the soundtracks of many contemporary films.  Pergolesi received a musical education at the Conservatorio dei Poveri in Naples where he gained a good reputation as a violinist.  In 1732 he was appointed maestro di cappella to the Prince of Stigliano in Naples and produced for him an opera buffa, Lo frate ‘nnammorato, and a sacred work, believed to be his Mass in D, which were both well received.  The following year his serious opera, Il prigionier superbo, was produced but it was the comic intermezzo, La serva padrona, inserted between the acts, that was most popular, revealing his gift for comic characterisation.  Read more…

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Giuseppe ‘Pino’ Greco - Mafia executioner

Notorious hitman thought to have committed at least 80 murders

The notorious Mafia hitman Giuseppe Greco, who was convicted posthumously on 58 counts of murder but whose victims possibly ran into hundreds, was born on this day in 1952 in Ciaculli, a town on the outskirts of Palermo in Sicily.  More often known as ‘Pino’, or by his nickname Scarpuzzedda - meaning ‘little shoe’ - Greco is considered one of the most prolific killers in the history of organised crime.  The nephew of Michele Greco, who lived on an estate just outside Ciaculli and rose to be head of the Sicilian Mafia Commission - a body set up to settle disputes between rival clans - Pino Greco is generally accepted to have been responsible for 80 deaths, although some students of Cosa Nostra history believe he could have committed more than 300 killings.  Most of Greco’s victims were fellow criminals, the majority of them killed during the Second Mafia War, which began in 1978 and intensified between 1981 and 1983 with more than 1,000 homicides, as rival clans fought each other and against the state, with judges, prosecutors and politicians prominent in the fight against organised crime themselves becoming targets.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Wimbledon 2024: The Official Story of the Championships, by Paul Newman

Wimbledon 2024 - The Official Story of The Championships is the comprehensive, entertaining, and beautifully illustrated retelling of a spell-binding fortnight of tennis at the All England Club. Since 1984 the official 'annual' has reviewed in detail each Championships held at Wimbledon and this 40th edition promises to be one of the best yet with the tournament playing host to established stars and exciting emerging talents. Paul Newman's crafted text, coupled with the stunning images captured by Wimbledon's team of award-winning photographers, provides readers with a wonderful and comprehensive review of a memorable tournament played out under blue skies and on stunningly green courts. Following the full story of the tournament, from qualifying through to the concluding mixed doubles final on Centre Court, the book also focuses on some of the other stories and characters that make Wimbledon so colourful and includes daily features and light-hearted stories from the sold-out grounds in southwest London.

Paul Newman is the tennis correspondent of The Independent. He has worked as a sports journalist for British national newspapers for more than 30 years.

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Jasmine Paolini - tennis star

Breakthrough year saw Tuscan soar in rankings

Jasmine Paolini reached two Grand Slam
finals during an exceptional 2024 season

The tennis player Jasmine Paolini, whose outstanding 2024 season saw her match the highest world singles ranking attained by any Italian in the history of women’s tennis, was born on this day in 1996 in Castelnuovo di Garfagnana, an historic town around 45km (28 miles) north of the city of Lucca.

Having reached two Grand Slam finals, won her second career WTA 1000 title and helped the Italian squad become Billie Jean King Cup champions in the course of the year, Paolini climbed to No 4 in the world, equalling the achievement of the 2010 French Open champion Francesca Schiavone.

A popular player with fans for her sunny attitude on court, she also won a gold medal in doubles at the 2024 Paris Olympics, partnering Italy’s all-time leading women’s doubles player, Sara Errani.

Having finished runner-up to world No 1 Iga Swiatek in the 2024 French Open final and to the Czech player Barbora Krejcikova on the Wimbledon grass five weeks later, Paolini’s next target is to win her first Grand Slam title.

Schiavone and Flavia Pennetta, who was US Open champion in 2015, are the only Italian women so far to win the singles title at one of tennis’s four Grand Slams - the Australian, French and US Opens, and the Wimbledon Championships.

Paolini is coached by the 54-year-old former Italian singles player Renzo Furlan, who reached 19 in the world during his own playing career.

Although only 5ft 4ins (1.63m) tall, which means she cannot match the serving qualities of taller opponents - current world No 1 Aryna Sabalenka, for example, is 6ft (1.83m) - Paolini makes up for her lack of height with powerful groundstrokes and her speed around the court, which she attributes to her Ghanaian heritage on her mother’s side.

Paolini's strength in rallies helps
compensate for her small stature

Paolini’s father, Ugo, is Italian; her mother, Jacqueline, is Polish with a Ghanaian father. The couple met when Ugo was running a bar in Bagna di Lucca and Jacqueline, who grew up in Lodz, arrived in Italy to work as a waitress. They were married within a year.

Their daughter grew up in Bagna di Lucca, where her uncle, Adriano Paolini, introduced her to tennis at the Mirafiume club in the town at the age of five. She worked under the guidance of Marco Picchi and Ivano Pieri, subsequently training at Vicopelago in Lucca, Forte dei Marmi and, from the age of 15, with her current coach Renzo Furlan, who was working for the Italian Tennis Federation at Tirrenia, just outside Pisa.

After winning one junior title at the age of 17 in 2013, Paolini had to wait another four years to make her WTA singles tournament debut at the Swedish Open in 2017. Good results in 2019 propelled her to 94th in the world going into the 2020 season. 

In 2021, she he celebrated her first WTA singles title at the Slovenia Open and entered the main draw of all four Grand Slams for the first time.

Following the 2022 Australian Open, Paolini reached the WTA top 50 for the first time, having achieved her first win over a top-10 player when she knocked out Sabalenka, the then world No 3, at Indian Wells. By October 2023 she had climbed to a career high 31, displacing Elisabetta Cocciaretto as Italian No 1.

Then came substantial progress in 2024, when she played no fewer than 110 singles matches, the programme devised with Furlan providing few breaks but a chance to build real momentum. Beginning with a first fourth-round appearance at the Australian Open in January, the deepest she had been in a Grand Slam to that date, she added a doubles title at the Linz Open in February alongside Errani and a first WTA 1000 title In Dubai, avenging her Australian Open defeat by beating Anna Kalinskaya in the final, taking her to 15 in the world rankings. 

At the French Open, seeded 12th, she overcame Elena Rybakina in the quarter-finals with her first top-five win at a major, then defeated Russia’s Mirra Andreeva in the semi-finals before losing to Swiatek in the final.

Sara Errani partnered Paolini to
doubles gold at the Olympics

She reached the Wimbledon final despite having never previously survived round one at the London venue. Seeded No 7, she knocked out Madison Keys and Emma Navarro in the second week before a semi-final marathon win over Donna Vekić that set a tournament record by lasting two hours and 51 minutes as Paolini came back to triumph from a set down.

The first Italian woman to reach the Wimbledon semi-finals in the open era, she ultimately lost to Krejcikova in three sets.

She and 37-year-old Errani then won gold for Italy at the Olympics, defeating the ‘neutral’ Russian pair of Andreeva and Diana Shnaider in the final, before a singles quarter-final at the Wuhan Open in October allowed her to match Schiavone’s achievement by becoming world No 4. 

Her whirlwind schedule in 2024 also saw Paolini collect more than $5 million in prize money, almost tripling her career earnings.

Errani, with whom Paolini won doubles titles in Rome and China in 2024, also played a key role in the Billie Jean King Cup as the pair won decisive doubles victories against Japan and Poland, before Paolini’s defeat of Rebecca Sramkova in the final against Slovenia gave Italy their first title triumph in the former Federation Cup for 11 years.

The Rocca Ariostesca, once home of the poet
Ludovico Ariosto, attracts visitors to Castelnuovo

Travel tip:

Castelnuovo di Garfagna, Jasmine Paolini’s birthplace, nestles in a valley flanked by the foothills of the Apuan Alps and the Apennines. A town of around 6,000 inhabitants, it can trace its history back to the eighth century, after which its strategic position saw it grow quickly into an important town with defensive walls and castles, which have been enlarged and improved over time. Today, the defensive walls contain the oldest parts of the town, characterised by winding streets and small artisan shops. The more modern part of the town is outside the walls. It developed as a market town from the 13th century, first under the control of Castruccio Castracani, then by the Estensi family of Ferrara, who made the town a seat of Vicarship and built the town’s Duomo - the Chiesa dei Santi Pietro e Paolo. Power transferred to Urbino and then Florence for brief periods in the 16th century before its return to the House of Este. Today, it remains a bustling town with direct road and rail links to Lucca, Pisa, Florence and Viareggio. As well as the Duomo, which has a Renaissance facade and a Baroque interior, the Rocca Ariostesca is an important historical building. The castle takes its name from the Italian poet, Ludovico Ariosto, who lived there between 1522 and 1525 when he was governor of the Garfagnana for the House of Este. Just outside the town, the Fortezza di Monte Alfonso, surrounded by huge protective walls, offers stunning views. 

The Ponte della Maddalena in Bagni di Lucca has
been standing since the late 12th century

Travel tip:

Bagni di Lucca, where Paolini grew up, is actually a collection of 27 villages in the Lima Valley in northern Tuscany, situated 28km (17 miles), famous largely for the hot springs that have attracted visitors to the area since Etruscan and Roman times. The area enjoyed its most prosperous time during French occupation in the 19th century, when the town became the summer residence of the court of Napoleon and his sister, Elisa Baciocchi. A casino was built, where gambling was part of social nightlife. Bagni di Lucca was also popular with English travellers, including Elizabeth Barrett Browning and her husband, Robert Browning, who spent their summers there during their time in Italy in the 1840s and 1850s.  Other illustrious guests said to have visited Bagni di Lucca include the poets Byron, Shelley, Lever, Giusti, Monti and, in the 20th century, Carducci, Pascoli, Montale; writers such as Dumas and musicians Strauss, Listz, Paganini, Puccini and Mascagni. The main sights today include the Art Nouveau complex of the 1839 Casino, Italy's first Anglican church - now a library - and the restored English Cemetery. Also look out of Lorenzo Nottolini’s Ponte delle Catene, one of the oldest iron bridges still standing today, and the mediaeval Ponte della Maddalena, an important crossing probably commissioned by the Countess Matilda of Tuscany in the late 12th century and later renovated under the direction of Castruccio Castracani. It became known as Ponte della Maddalena, from an oratory dedicated to Mary Magdalene, whose statue stood at the foot of the bridge on the eastern bank.

Also on this day:

1710: The birth of composer Giovanni Battista Pergolesi

1881: The birth of San Francisco Opera founder Gaetano Merola

1952: The birth of Mafia hitman Giuseppe Greco

1975: The death of writer and painter Carlo Levi

2015: The death of singer-songwriter Pino Daniele

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