10 January

Flaminio Bertoni - sculptor and car designer

Visionary ideas turned Citroën into style icon

The sculptor and automobile designer Flaminio Bertoni, the creative genius behind the groundbreaking Citroën cars of the 1930s, 40s and 50s, was born on this day in 1903 in what is now the Masnago district of Varese.  Bertoni, who lived in or near Paris from 1931 until his death in 1964, designed bodies for the stylish Traction Avant luxury executive car and the enduring workhorse 'Deux Chevaux' - the 2CV - which became almost a symbol of France.  Yes both of these were eclipsed, some would say, by the brilliance of Bertoni's aerodynamic, futuristic Citroën DS - also known as 'the Goddess' - which was named the most beautiful car of all time by the magazine Classic and Sports Car and was described by the Chicago Institute of Design soon after its launch as among the '100 most beautiful things in the world'.  Bertoni was fêted in France, where he was made a Knight of Arts and Letters by the government of Charles de Gaulle in 1961 but it was not until almost 40 years after his death that his achievements were given recognition in his home country, where his son, Leonardo, set up a museum in Varese to celebrate his work.  Read more…

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John Dalberg-Acton – historian, politician and writer

Gladstone’s friend and adviser became an Italian Marquess

John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton, better known as Lord Acton, was born on this day in 1834 in Naples, which was then part of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.  He was brought up as a Roman Catholic and was later denied entry to the University of Cambridge because of his religion. He is best remembered for the quote, ‘Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely’, which he once wrote in a letter to an Anglican bishop.  Dalberg-Acton’s grandfather was Sir John Francis Edward Acton, who had been appointed by Queen Maria Carolina of Naples to reorganise the Neapolitan navy. His ability impressed her so much that she made him commander-in-chief of both the army and the navy of the Kingdom of Naples and he became Minister of Finance and eventually Prime Minister.  His father was Sir Ferdinand Richard Acton, who had the Villa Pignatelli built on the Riviera di Chiaia in Naples. Dalberg-Acton was born in the villa to Sir Ferdinand’s wife, Maria Luisa Pellina de Dalberg, who was from Germany. The baby was baptised the next day in a small chapel in the villa.  Dalberg-Acton was brought up to speak English, Italian, French and German. His father died when he was three years old. Read more…

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Pina Menichelli – silent movie star

Screen diva who enjoyed worldwide fame

The actress Pina Menichelli, who became one of the most celebrated female stars of the silent movie era, was born on this day in 1890 in Castroreale, a village in northeast Sicily.  Menichelli’s career was brief – she retired at the age of just 34 – but in her last eight or nine years on screen she enjoyed such popularity that her films played to packed houses and she commanded a salary that was the equivalent of millions of euros in today’s money.  Without words, actors had to use facial expressions and body movements to create character in the parts they were playing and Menichelli, a naturally beautiful woman, exploited her elegance and sensuality to the full, at times pushing the limits of what was acceptable on screen.  In fact, one of her films, La Moglie di Claudio (Claudio’s Wife) was banned by the censors for fear it would offend sensitivities, particularly those of the Catholic Church.  Generally cast in the role of femme fatale, Menichelli thus became something of a sex symbol in the years after the First World War and there was considerable shock when she announced abruptly in 1924 that she was quitting the film industry for good.  Read more…

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Maurizio Sarri - football manager

Former coach of Juventus and Chelsea

The football coach Maurizio Sarri, former manager of Chelsea in the English Premier League, was born on this day in 1959 in Naples.  Sarri, who has an unusual background for a professional football coach in that he spent more than 20 years in banking before devoting himself to the game full-time, took over as Chelsea manager in the summer of 2017, succeeding another Italian, Antonio Conte.  Previously, he had spent three seasons as head coach at SSC Napoli, twice finishing second and once third in Serie A.  He never played professionally, yet he has now held coaching positions at 20 different clubs.  Sarri was born in the Bagnoli district of Naples, where his father, Amerigo, a former professional cyclist, worked in the sprawling but now derelict Italsider steel plant.  It was not long, however, before the family moved away, however, first to Castro, a village on the shore of Lago d’Iseo, near Bergamo, and then to Figline Valdarno, in Tuscany, his father’s birthplace. It was there that Sarri grew up and played football for the local amateur team. A centre half, he had trials with Torino and Fiorentina but was deemed not quite good enough for the professional game.  Read more…

San Pietro Orseolo – Doge of Venice and monk

Rich and powerful Doge made a life-changing decision

Pietro Orseolo, a former Venetian Doge who joined the Benedictine order, died on this day in 987.  He was canonised by Pope Clement XII in 1731 and his feast day is celebrated on the anniversary of his death on 10 January each year.  Pietro Orseolo became Doge of Venice in 976 but after just two years in office he left his palace in the middle of the night to go to France to become a monk.  Orseolo was originally from a powerful family in Udine and at the age of 20 became commander of the Venetian fleet waging successful campaigns against pirate ships.  He was elected Doge after the previous ruler of Venice had been killed in a revolt. Orseolo restored order to the city, built much needed hospitals and cared for widows and orphans.  He started to rebuild the Doge’s palace and St Mark’s Basilica using his own money. But he suddenly left Venice to travel to southern France with three other Venetians to join a Benedictine abbey. It is believed he told no one about his decision in advance, not even his wife and family.  After some years living as a monk performing menial tasks at the abbey, Orseolo went to live in the surrounding forest as a hermit.  Read more…

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Giorgio Mondadori - publisher

Helped launch La Repubblica after family split

The publisher Giorgio Mondadori, who was president of the famous publishing house set up by his father, Arnoldo Mondadori, until an acrimonious split in 1976, died on his 92nd birthday on this day in 2009 in a clinic in Tuscany.  Mondadori commissioned the Brazilian architect, Oscar Niemeyer, to build the company’s eye-catching headquarters in Segrate, near Milan, in 1975, which remains his legacy to the family business.  At around the same time that he left the company, for whom he had worked for 38 years, he set up a joint venture with another publishing group, L’Espresso, that resulted in the launch of La Repubblica, a new, centre-left national newspaper that was to grow into one of the most popular daily newspapers in Italy, with a circulation topped only by the long-established Corriere della Sera.  Born in Ostiglia, a small town in the province of Mantua, Lombardy, in 1917, Giorgio was the second of four children born to Arnoldo Mondadori and Andreina Monicelli, some 10 years after his father founded Arnoldo Mondadori Editore.  After completing his education, Giorgio began working for the company in 1938 at the age of 21.  Read more…

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Aldo Ballarin - footballer

Brilliant defender who died in Superga tragedy

Aldo Ballarin, one of the 18 Torino players who were killed in the 1949 Superga plane crash, was born on this day in 1922 in the fishing port of Chioggia, at the southern tip of the Laguna di Venezia.  Ballarin, whose brother, Dino, also died in the accident, played at right-back in the Torino team, making more than 150 appearances and winning the scudetto - the Serie A championship title - four seasons in a row between 1945 and 1949.  A defender who was renowned for his tackling and heading ability but who also used the skills he had learned as a winger in his youth to be an effective attacker, Ballarin won nine international caps in the azzurri of Italy.  He remains the only player born in Chioggia to play for the Italian national team.  One of six children in his family, Aldo would play football for hours in the street near his home as he was growing up. Of his three brothers, two would also play professionally. Dino, who was a little under two years younger than Aldo, was on Torino’s books as a goalkeeper.  At the age of 13, Aldo began playing for the youth team of Clodia, a local amateur club, before signing apprentice professional terms with Rovigo, a Serie C club about 55km (34 miles) from Chioggia. Read more…

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Caesar crosses the Rubicon

Act of defiance that started a civil war and coined a phrase

The Roman general Julius Caesar led his army across the Rubicon river in northern Italy in an act of military defiance that would plunge the Roman Republic into civil war on this day in 49BC.  The course of the Rubicon, which can still be found on maps of Italy today, entering the Adriatic between Ravenna and Rimini in northeast Italy, represented the border between the Roman province of Cisalpine Gaul, over which Caesar had command, and what was by then known as Italia, the area of the peninsula south of the Alps directly governed by Rome.  One of the most powerful politicians in the Roman Republic after forming an alliance with Pompey and Crassus known as the First Triumvirate, Caesar had spent much of the previous decade expanding his territory through the Gallic Wars, taking control of much of modern-day France and northern Italy and extending the borders of the Republic as far as the Rhine.  He was the first Roman general to invade Britain.  The troops under his command - the 13th Legion - numbered more than 20,000 men who had seen Caesar’s military skills develop and were fiercely loyal.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Citroen DS: French Design Classic, by Lance Cole

Launched in 1955 yet looking like a sci-fi design proposal for a future then undreamed of, Flaminio Bertoni's ellipsoid sculpture with wheels that was the Citroen DS stunned the world. There was a near riot at the 1955 Paris Motor Show launch of the car, orders flooded in for this, the new 'big Citroen' (a Voiture a Grande Diffusion or VGD) as the car that replaced the legendary Traction Avant range. The term 'DS' stems from two Citroen parts of nomenclature - the type of engine used as the 11D, (D) and the special hemispherical design of the cylinder head as 'Culasse Special' (S): DS out of 'Deesse' or Goddess, was a more popular myth of ' DS' origination, but an erroneous one. But it was not just the car's aerodynamically advanced body shape that framed the genius of the DS: hydro pneumatic self-levelling suspension, advanced plastics and synthetics for the construction of the roof and dashboard/fascia, and amazing road holding and cabin comfort were some of this car's highlights. Only the lack of an advanced new engine was deemed a missed opportunity. In fact Citroen had created a new engine for the car but lacked the resources to produce it in time for 1955. DS was a major moment in the history of car design, one so advanced that it would take other auto manufacturers years to embrace. Citroen DS: French Design Classic describes how the DS, with its 'aero' design, was the precursor to today's low drag cars of curved form. Manufactured worldwide, used by presidents, leaders, diplomats, farmers and many types of people, the DS redefined Citroen, its engineering and design language, and its brand, for decades to come.

Lance Cole is a journalist and the author of over a dozen books. He has written features and news items for many of the major automotive titles. He has been a columnist with the Daily Telegraph, The Independent and the South China Post. His books include Bugatti Blue, Vickers VC10, Secrets of the Spitfire, Saab Cars, and The Classic Car Adventure. 

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9 January

NEW - Franca Viola – rape survivor

Sicilian heroine achieved a change in the attitude towards rape in Italy

Franca Viola, who survived a horrific kidnapping and a series of rapes and heroically resisted societal pressure to marry her attacker afterwards, was born on this day in 1948 in Alcamo in Sicily. She became famous throughout Italy in the 1960s for refusing to undergo what was called a matrimonio riparatore - a rehabilitating marriage - to her rapist, which would have enabled her to be accepted in Sicilian society despite having lost her virginity while still unmarried.  Franca was born in the rural town of Alcamo and was the oldest daughter of a farmer and his wife. At the age of 15, Franca became engaged to Filippo Melodia, who was 23 and the nephew of a Mafia member.  After Melodia was arrested for theft, Franca’s father insisted that she broke off the engagement with him and Melodia subsequently went to live in Germany.  Two years later, after Franca had become engaged to another man, Melodia returned to Alcamo and tried to get back into her life. He started stalking her and threatened her father, Bernardo, and her new fiancé.  In the early hours of Boxing Day in 1965, Melodia and a group of about 12 armed men broke into Franca’s family home and kidnapped her.  Read more…

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Marco Polo - merchant and explorer

Venetian trader who described travels in China 

The Italian explorer Marco Polo, who achieved a place in history as the first European to write in extensive detail about life in China, is thought by many historians to have died on or close to this day in 1324 in his home city of Venice.  Accounts of his final days say he had been confined to bed with an illness and that his doctor was concerned on January 8 that he was close to death. Indeed, so worried were those around his bedside that they sent for a local priest to witness his last will and testament, which Polo dictated in the presence of his wife, Donata, and their three daughters, who were appointed executors.  The supposition has been that he died on the same evening. The will document was preserved and is kept by the Biblioteca Marciana, the historic public library of Venice just across the Piazzetta San Marco from St Mark’s Basilica. It shows the date of the witnessing of Polo’s testament as January 9, although it should be noted that under Venetian law at the time, the change of date occurred at sunset rather than midnight.  Confusingly, the document recorded his death as occurring in June 1324 and the witnessing of the will on January 9, 1323. The consensus among historians, however, is that he probably reached his end in January, 1324.  Read more…

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Norberto Bobbio - political philosopher

Intellectual regarded as foremost 20th century commentator

Norberto Bobbio, a philosopher of law and political sciences who came to be seen as one of Italy’s most respected political commentators in the 20th century, died on this day in 2004 in Turin, the city of his birth.  He was 94 and had been in hospital suffering from respiratory problems. His funeral was attended by political and cultural leaders including the then-President of Italy, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi.  He had been writing essays well into his 90s, despite for much of his life suffering from bouts of what was described as “fatigue and melancholy”.  His extensive catalogue of work spanned almost seven decades of Italian political life and societal change from the rise of Fascism in the 1930s to the second premiership of Silvio Berlusconi, of whom he was an outspoken critic.  For much of his career, Bobbio was a professor at the University of Turin, where he was chair of philosophy of law from 1948 and, from 1972, of the faculties of legal and political philosophy and political science.  He was made a Life Senator in 1984, although he stayed away from playing an active role in Italian politics after failing to gain election to the parliament of the new Republic in 1946.  Read more…

Massimiliano Fuksas – architect

Brilliant designs illuminate cities worldwide

The international architect Massimiliano Fuksas, whose work has influenced the urban landscape in more than a dozen countries across the globe, was born on this day in 1944 in Rome.  The winner of multiple awards, Fuksas sits alongside Antonio Citterio and Renzo Piano as the most important figures in contemporary Italian architectural design.  His Fuksas Design company, which has its headquarters in a Renaissance palace near Piazza Navona in Rome, also has offices in Paris and in Shenzhen, China, employing 140 staff.  Among more than 600 projects completed by the company in 40 years, those that stand out include Terminal Three at the Shenzhen Bao’an International Airport in China, the New National Archives of France at Pierrefitte sur Seine-Saint Denis, the Peres Peace House in Tel Aviv,  the Zenith Music Hall in Strasbourg, the Armani Ginza Tower in Tokyo, the Italian Space Agency headquarters in Rome and the FieraMilano Trade Fair complex on the outskirts of Milan.  Ongoing projects include the new EUR Hotel and Conference Centre in Rome and the Duomo metro station in Naples.  Read more…

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Victor Emmanuel II dies

Christian burial for the King excommunicated by the Pope

Victor Emmanuel II, the first King of Italy, died on this day in 1878 in Rome.  He was buried in a tomb in the Pantheon in Rome and was succeeded by his son, who became Umberto I, King of Italy.  Victor Emmanuel II was allowed to be buried in the Pantheon by Pope Pius IX, even though he had previously excommunicated him from the Catholic Church.  Before becoming King of Italy, Victor Emmanuel, as King of Sardinia-Piedmont, had secretly encouraged Garibaldi in the conquest of Sicily and Naples. He had then led his Piedmontese army into papal territory to link up with Garibaldi, despite the threat of excommunication.  In his quest to become King of a fully united Italy, Victor Emmanuel achieved two notable military triumphs. He managed to acquire the Veneto after linking up with Bismark’s Prussia in a military campaign in 1866. Also, after the withdrawal of the French occupying troops, his soldiers were able to enter Rome through a breach in the walls at Porta Pia and take over the city.  This had antagonised Pius IX so much that he refused all overtures from the new King, when he attempted a reconciliation.  Read more…

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Umberto I – King of Italy

Anarchists made three attempts on monarch’s life

King Umberto I ascended the throne of Italy on this day in 1878.  Known by the Italian people as Il Buono (the Good) he succeeded on the death of his father, Victor Emmanuel II.  Umberto had already won popular support because of the way he had conducted himself during his military career and as a result of his marriage to Margherita of Savoy and the subsequent birth of their son, who was to become King Victor Emmanuel III.  But he was to become increasingly unpopular during his reign because of his imperialist policies and his harsh ways of dealing with civil unrest.  Queen Margherita was particularly loved in Naples, where she visited schools and hospitals and organised collections of toys and clothes for the children of poor families. She was seen to hold the hands of cholera victims without wearing gloves and to join the ordinary women in their processions to the Duomo.  As a result, Pizza Margherita, with its tomatoes, basil and mozzarella representing the colours of the Italian flag, was created in Naples and named after her.  However, her popularity didn’t help Umberto, who was attacked by an anarchist in Naples during the first year of his reign.  Read more…

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Book of the Day:  Women and the Reinvention of the Political: Feminism in Italy, 1968-1983, by Maud Anne Bracke

Women and the Reinvention of the Political is the first in-depth study of the feminist movement that swept Italy from 1968 through to the early 1980s, and one of the first to use a combination of oral history interviews and fresh archive sources to analyze the origins, themes, practices and impacts of "second-wave" feminism. While detailing the local and national contexts in which the movement operated, it sees this movement as transnationally connected.  Emerging in a society that was both characterised by traditional gender roles, and a microcosm of radical political projects in the wake of 1968, the feminist movement was able to transform the lives of thousands of women, shape gender identities and roles, and provoke political and legislative change. More strongly mass-based and socially diverse than its counterparts in other Western countries at the time, its agenda encompassed questions of work, unpaid care-work, sexuality, health, reproductive rights, sexual violence, social justice, and self-expression.

Maud Anne Bracke is Senior Lecturer in Modern European History at the University of Glasgow. She was educated in her native Belgium and in Italy.

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Franca Viola – rape survivor

Sicilian heroine achieved a change in the attitude towards rape in Italy

Franca Viola was kept
prisoner for eight days

Franca Viola, who survived a horrific kidnapping and a series of rapes and heroically resisted societal pressure to marry her attacker afterwards, was born on this day in 1948 in Alcamo in Sicily.

She became famous throughout Italy in the 1960s for refusing to undergo what was called a matrimonio riparatore - a rehabilitating marriage - to her rapist, which would have enabled her to be accepted in Sicilian society despite having lost her virginity while still unmarried.

Franca was born in the rural town of Alcamo and was the oldest daughter of a farmer and his wife. At the age of 15, Franca became engaged to Filippo Melodia, who was 23 and the nephew of a Mafia member. 

After Melodia was arrested for theft, Franca’s father insisted that she broke off the engagement with him and Melodia subsequently went to live in Germany.

Two years later, after Franca had become engaged to another man, Melodia returned to Alcamo and tried to get back into her life. He started stalking her and threatened her father, Bernardo, and her new fiancé.

In the early hours of Boxing Day in 1965, Melodia and a group of about 12 armed men broke into Franca’s family home and kidnapped her. They dragged her into a car after injuring her mother.  They also abducted her eight-year-old brother, Mariano, because he refused to let go of his sister.

Mariano was released a few hours later, but Franca was kept prisoner for eight days, during which she was raped many times. Melodia told her that she would now be forced to marry him so that she did not become a dishonoured woman in the eyes of the community, but she still refused him.

Pope Paul VI with Franca Viola
soon after she was married

Melodia eventually contacted Franca’s father to try to strike a deal with him. He wanted her father to agree to an arrangement that was sometimes made between two Sicilian families after a couple had eloped together. 

Franca’s father, Bernardo, pretended to negotiate with him, but all the while he was secretly collaborating with the Carabinieri, who were preparing an operation to rescue his daughter.

After Franca was freed and her kidnappers had been arrested, her father asked her if she wanted to marry Melodia. When she told him she did not want to marry him, her father said he would do everything he could to help her.

By refusing a so-called ‘rehabilitating marriage’, Franca was challenging what was common practice in Sicily at the time. If she remained unmarried, having lost her virginity, she would become ‘una donna svergognata’ - a shameless woman.

At the time, the Italian Penal Code regarded rape as a crime against public morality, rather than as a violent attack on a person. A rehabilitating marriage meant that a rapist’s crime was automatically expunged.

Viola pictured during a police
interrogation in Sicily

After Franca refused to marry her attacker, her family were threatened and persecuted by some of the local people and their vineyard and barn were set on fire.

The resulting trial attracted a lot of media and public attention. Melodia’s lawyers claimed Franca had consented to an elopement, rather than having been kidnapped in violent circumstances.

However, when the trial finished in 1966 Melodia was found guilty and sentenced to 11 years in prison. This sentence was later reduced to ten years, with a two-year period of compulsory residence in Modena imposed upon him. Some of his fellow gang members were acquitted and the rest received brief sentences.

Two years after Melodia was released from prison, he was killed in a Mafia-style execution before he could return to Sicily.

The article of Italian law that stipulated a rapist could vacate his crime by marrying his victim was not abolished until 1981, and sexual violence did not become a crime against the person instead of a crime against public morality in Italy until 1996. This was 30 years after Melodia was found guilty of raping Franca Viola.

In 1968, when Franca was nearly 21, she married Giuseppe Ruisi, an accountant, who she had known and liked since childhood. It is claimed he was threatened and that he had to request a firearms licence after applying for the marriage licence, to protect himself and his bride-to-be from harm.

Italian President Giuseppe Saragat sent the couple a wedding gift and Pope Paul VI received them in a private audience soon after their wedding. They went on to have three children together. 

Three films have been made based on Franca’s story and a book about her case was written by Sicilian author Beatrice Monroy. Franca is now 77 years old and still lives in Sicily.

The Basilica di Santa Maria
Assunta in Alcamo

Travel tip:

Alcamo, the birthplace of Franca Viola, is a town of almost 45,000 residents in the province of Trapani in Sicily, located about 50km (31 miles) north of the city of Trapani and the same distance from the capital of the island, Palermo. To the north of Alcamo is the Tyrrhenian Sea and to the west, the town of Castellammare del Golfo, a beautiful seaside town that has been used as a location in several films and was also featured in an episode in the Inspector Montalbano television series, entitled A Sense of Touch. Strategically important in both the Roman and Byzantine empires and an important Arab settlement, Alcamo has many historic buildings. These include the restored Castello Conti di Modica, which dates back to the 14th or 15th centuries and now houses a museum, and some good examples of Baroque architecture in the Basilica di Santa Maria Assunta, which contains columns of red marble extracted from Monte Bonifato and frescoes and paintings by the Flemish artist Guglielmo Borremans, and the Chiesa dei Santissimi Paolo e Bartolomeo.

Trapani, now a popular tourist destination,
is notable for its curving harbour

Travel tip:

Trapani is a large city with ancient origins situated on the west coast of Sicily. Its Mediterranean climate of long summers and mild winters along with its nearby airport have made it an attractive destination for tourists. It has some beautiful historic buildings, including the Basilica and Sanctuary of Maria Santissima Annunziata. The city has a big fishing industry and produces its own pesto, a sauce made alla trapanese - using Sicilian almonds instead of pine nuts. The port is notable for a curving harbour, where Peter of Aragon landed in 1282 to begin the Spanish occupation of Sicily.  Well-placed strategically to trade with Africa as well as the Italian mainland, Trapani was once the hub of a commercial network that stretched from Carthage in what is now Tunisia to Venice. Nowadays, the port is used by ferries serving Tunisia and the smaller islands, as well as other Italian ports.  

Also on this day:

1324: The death of explorer Marco Polo

1878: The death of Victor Emmanuel II, the first King of Italy

1878: Umberto I succeeds Victor Emmanuel II

1944: The birth of architect Massimiliano Fuksas

2004: The death of political philosopher Norberto Bobbio

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8 January

Giotto – Renaissance artist

Florentine genius was first to paint realistic figures

The brilliant 14th century painter Giotto di Bondone, who was known simply as Giotto, died on this day in 1337 in Florence.  Although much of his work is no longer in existence, he is remembered as one of the greatest artists of the early Renaissance period.  It is believed Giotto was born in about 1267 in Florence but it is not known how he learned to paint with such a sense of space, naturalism and drama. His work represented a crucial turning point in the history of art because he painted lifelike, solid figures and put in fascinating background details.  He is believed to be the first artist to make a decisive break with the Byzantine style of painting and draw figures accurately from life.  Giotto’s revolutionary style was followed by many other painters later in the 14th century and it is said that he was actually paid a salary by the commune of Florence because of his excellence.  Some of his work can be seen in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, such as his altarpiece, The Ognissanti Madonna, painted in 1310, which is a good example of his ability to paint lifelike people.  But Giotto’s most stunning surviving work is the interior of the Scrovegni Chapel in Padova.  Read more…

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Leonardo Sciascia – writer

Books mercilessly expose Italian politics and role of the Mafia

Leonardo Sciascia, novelist, playwright and politician, was born on this day in 1921 in Racalmuto in Sicily.  Many of his novels looked at Sicilian life and how the Mafia operates as part of society, and some have since been made into films.  He also wrote a book analysing the kidnapping and assassination of Aldo Moro, the prominent Christian Democrat politician and former prime minister.  Sciascia was part of an investigation into Moro’s kidnapping and criticised Giulio Andreotti, the prime minister at the time, for his lack of action and for failing to deal with Brigate Rosse, the Red Brigades.  When Sciascia was a teenager his family moved to Caltanissetta in Sicily, where he studied writing and literature.  He married Maria Andronico, a local school teacher, in 1944 and he himself held teaching positions for the early part of his career, retiring to write full time in 1968.  In 1954 he published an autobiographical novel inspired by his experiences as an elementary school teacher.  In 1948 his brother committed suicide, which was to have a profound effect on Sciascia’s life.  His first work was a collection of poems satirising fascism, which was published in 1950.  Read more…

Maria Teresa de Filippis – racing driver

Pioneer for women behind the wheel

The racing driver Maria Teresa de Filippis, who was the first woman to compete in a Formula One world championship event and remains one of only two to make it on to the starting grid in the history of the competition, died on this day in 2016 in Gavarno, a village near Bergamo in Lombardy.  De Filippis, a contemporary of the early greats of F1, the Italians Giuseppe Farina and Alberto Ascari and the Argentine Juan Manuel Fangio, qualified for the Belgian Grand Prix in June 1958 and finished 10th.  She made the grid for the Portuguese and Italian Grands Prix later in the year but had to retire from both due to engine problems.  She managed only six laps in the former but was unlucky not to finish in the latter event at Monza, where she completed 57 of the 70 laps. Although she was at the back of the field, 13 other cars had retired earlier in the race and she would therefore have finished eighth.  These were her only F1 races. The following year she turned her back on the sport following the death of her close friend, the French driver Jean Behra, in a crash in Germany. Only a year earlier, her former fiancé, the Italian driver Luigi Musso, had also been killed.  Read more…

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Manuela Arcuri - actress and model

TV drama star who portrayed woman who killed Mafia boss

The actress and former model Manuela Arcuri, who received accolades for playing the lead role in a truth-inspired drama about a grieving widow who shot dead a gang boss, was born on this day in 1977 in Anagni, an ancient town in southern Lazio.  Arcuri portrayed a character based on Assunta ‘Pupetta’ Maresca, who made headlines in 1955 when she walked into a bar in Naples and shot dead the Camorra boss who had ordered the killing of her husband, just three months after they were married.  The four-episode drama, aired in 2013 on the Italian commercial TV channel Canale 5, was called Pupetta: Il coraggio e la passione (Pupetta: Courage and Passion). Directed by Luciano Odorisio and also starring Tony Musante, Eva Grimaldi and Barbara De Rossi, the series confirmed Arcuri’s standing as a television actress of note, winning her the award of best actress at the 2013 Rome Fiction Fest.  She had appeared by then in leading roles in a number of TV dramas and mini-series, including Io non dimentico (I Don’t Forget), Il peccato e la vergogna (The Sin and the Shame) and Sangue caldo (Hot Blood).   Read more…

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Book of the Day: The Cambridge Companion to Giotto, edited by Anne Derbes and Mark Sandona

The Cambridge Companion to Giotto serves as an introduction to one of the most important masters of early Italian art. Providing an overview of his life and career, this 2003 volume offers essays by leading authorities on the critical reception of the artist, an analysis of workshop practices of the period, the complexities of religious and secular patronage, Giotto's innovations in painting and architecture, and close readings of his most celebrated work, the frescoes of the Arena Chapel in Padua. Designed to serve as an essential resource for students of late mediæval and early Renaissance Italy, The Cambridge Companion to Giotto also provides a chronology of the artist's life and a select but comprehensive bibliography.

Anne Derbes is Professor of Art History at Hood College, Maryland. She is also the author of Picturing the Passion in Late Medieval Italy: Narrative Painting, Franciscan Ideology, and the Levant. Mark Sandona is Professor of English and Chair of the Department of English at Hood College. 

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