18 January

NEW - Forza Italia - political party

Movement that gave media magnate Silvio Berlusconi political power

The shape of Italy’s political landscape changed on this day in 1994 with the launch of the Forza Italia party, whose leader, the wealthy media magnate Silvio Berlusconi, served as Italy’s prime minister three times. Work had been going on behind the scenes to lay the foundations of the party for several months, going back to Berlusconi and a group of friends and business colleagues meeting in a notary’s office in Milan in June 1993 to give legal status to what was called the Forza Italia Association for Good Government.  By November, a network of Forza Italia Clubs was established, quickly attracting many thousands of members. Details of this network appeared in the media, although Berlusconi denied that they were branches of a political party - despite news in December that an address on Via dell'Umiltà in Rome had been registered as Forza Italia headquarters. Its office was in the same building that once housed the headquarters of the Italian People's Party, a forerunner of the Christian Democracy party.  On January 18, 1994, however, it was confirmed that Forza Italia would be fielding candidates in the elections due to be held in March of that year.  Read more…

_____________________________________

Alfredo Ildefonso Schuster – Cardinal

Blessed monk who tried to preach humility to Mussolini

Alfredo Ildefonso Schuster, who was a Benedictine monk and served as Cardinal and Archbishop of Milan during World War II, was born on this day in 1880 in Rome.  Towards the end of the war, Schuster attempted to arrange a truce between Mussolini and the partisans, but failed because Mussolini refused to accept the demands for total surrender made by the partisan delegates.  During the unsuccessful meeting between Mussolini and the partisans in the Archbishop’s Palace in Milan, Schuster is reported to have made an attempt to preach humility to the Fascist leader. More than 40 years after his death, Cardinal Schuster was beatified on 12 May 1996 by Pope John Paul II.  Schuster was the son of a Bavarian tailor who had moved to live in Rome and he served as an altar boy at a German Church near St Peter’s Basilica.  In 1898 he joined the Order of Saint Benedict and took the name Ildefonso before entering the monastic community of Saint Paul Outside the Walls.  He studied while he was a monk and graduated as a Doctor of Philosophy in 1903, later receiving a Doctorate in Theology.   Read more…

_____________________________________

Katia Ricciarelli - operatic soprano

Star whose peak years were in ‘70s and ‘80s

The opera singer Katia Ricciarelli, who at her peak was seen as soprano who combined a voice of sweet timbre with engaging stage presence, was born on this day in 1946 at Rovigo in the Veneto.  She rose to fame quickly after making her professional debut as Mimi in Giacomo Puccini’s La bohème in Mantua in 1969 and in the 1970s was in demand for the major soprano roles.  Between 1972 and 1975, Ricciarelli sang at all the major European and American opera houses, including Lyric Opera of Chicago (1972), Teatro alla Scala in Milan (1973), the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden (1974) and the Metropolitan Opera (1975).  In 1981, she began an association with the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro that she maintained throughout the ‘80s.  In addition to her opera performances, Ricciarelli also appeared in a number of films.  She was Desdemona in Franco Zeffirelli's film version of Giuseppe Verdi's Otello in 1986, alongside Plácido Domingo. In 2005 she won the best actress prize Nastro d'Argento, awarded by the Italian film journalists, for her role in Pupi Avati's La seconda notte di nozze (2005).  During her peak years, Desdemona was one of her signature roles. Read more…

Alfonso Ferrabosco the elder – musician

Court composer suspected of being a spy

Alfonso Ferrabosco, the composer who first introduced the madrigal to England, was born on this day in Bologna in 1543.  As well as composing music for Queen Elizabeth I of England, he was also suspected of working as a spy for her.  Ferrabosco had been born into a family of musicians and travelled about in Italy and France while he was young with his father and uncle.  He went to England in 1562 with his uncle and found employment with Elizabeth I, becoming the first composer to introduce the unaccompanied harmony of the madrigal to England, where it later became very popular. Elizabeth is said to have settled an annuity equivalent to £66 on him.  Ferrabosco’s madrigals suited English tastes and were considered very skilful. He also composed sacred music and instrumental music for lutes and viols.  He made periodic trips back to Italy, but these were frowned upon both by the Pope and the Inquisition. England was at war with several Roman Catholic countries at the time and as a result, Ferrabosco lost his Italian inheritance.  At one point he was serving Cardinal Farnese in Rome, but decided he wanted to return to England.  Read more…

_____________________________________

Dino Meneghin – basketball player

Italy’s biggest star won 32 trophies and Olympic medal

Dino Meneghin, universally recognised as the greatest Italian player in basketball history, was born on this day in 1950 in Alano di Piave, a village in the Veneto.  The first Italian and only the second European player to be drafted by a National Basketball Association team when he was picked by the Atlanta Hawks in 1970, Meneghin enjoyed a professional career spanning 28 years.   He did not retire until he was 44 years old and had played in a professional match against his own son, Andrea, having won 32 trophies including 12 Italian national championships and seven EuroLeague titles.  Meneghin also participated in four Olympic basketball tournaments, winning a silver medal in the 1980 Games in Moscow. His international career amounted to 271 appearances for Italy, in which he scored 2,847 points.  Brought up in Varese in Lombardy, Meneghin was always exceptionally tall, growing to a height of 6ft 9ins (2.06m), and was earmarked for an athletic career.  He and his brother Renzo would train together, Renzo as a middle-distance runner, Dino as a shot-putter and discus thrower.  Read more…

_______________________________________

Book of the Day: The Shortest History of Italy: 3,000 Years from the Romans to the Renaissance to a Modern Republic (Shortest Histories No 13), by Ross King

The calendar. The Senate. The university. The piano, the heliocentric model, and the pizzeria. It's hard to imagine a world without Italian influence - and easy to assume that inventions like these could only come from a strong, stable peninsula, sure of its place in the world. In this breakneck history, bestselling author Ross King dismantles this assumption, uncovering the story of a land rife with inner uncertainty even as its influence spread.  As the Italian tale unfolds, prosperity and power fluctuate like the elevation in the Dolomites. If Rome's seven hills could talk, they might speak of the glorious time of Trajan - or bemoan the era of conquest and the Bubonic Plague that decimated Rome's population. Episodes of wealth like the First Triumvirate and the time of the Medicis are given fresh life alongside descriptions of the Middle Ages, the early days of Venice, the invasion of Napoleon, and the long struggle for unification.  Highlighting key events and personalities, The Shortest History of Italy sees King paint a vibrant portrait of a country whose political and cultural legacies enrich our lives today.

Ross King is the author of many acclaimed books about Italian history and culture, including The Bookseller of Florence, Brunelleschi’s Dome and Leonardo and the Last Supper. He lectures widely on Renaissance art at museums and is a regular participant in Italian Renaissance seminars in the UK and America.  He lives just outside Oxford.

Buy from Amazon

Home

Forza Italia - political party

Movement that gave media magnate Silvio Berlusconi political power

The Forza Italia logo, displaying the colours
of the Italian flag, soon became a familiar sight

The shape of Italy’s political landscape changed on this day in 1994 with the launch of the Forza Italia party, whose leader, the wealthy media magnate Silvio Berlusconi, served as Italy’s prime minister three times.

Work had been going on behind the scenes to lay the foundations of the party for several months, going back to Berlusconi and a group of friends and business colleagues meeting in a notary’s office in Milan in June 1993 to give legal status to what was called the Forza Italia Association for Good Government.

By November, a network of Forza Italia Clubs was established, quickly attracting many thousands of members. Details of this network appeared in the media, although Berlusconi denied that they were branches of a political party - despite news in December that an address on Via dell'Umiltà in Rome had been registered as Forza Italia headquarters. Its office was in the same building that once housed the headquarters of the Italian People's Party, a forerunner of the Christian Democracy party.

On January 18, 1994, however, it was confirmed that Forza Italia would be fielding candidates in the elections due to be held in March of that year.

Il Movimento politico Forza Italia, to give the party its full title, emerged from a period of profound political upheaval in Italy, when the traditional powers of the nation’s political history were swept away in a far-reaching corruption scandal uncovered by the Milan magistrate Antonio Di Pietro and his team of investigators.

The charismatic Berlusconi was a
natural vote winner for the party

The investigation, which became known as Mani Pulite - Clean Hands - eventually led to more than 3,000 arrests, the indictment of more than half the members of the Italian parliament and the collapse and dissolution of both the Christian Democracy and the Italian Socialist Party, whose leader, Bettino Craxi, had been convicted on two charges of political corruption and was due to face trial on a further four when he died in 2000.

Amid this turmoil, filling the void in particular left by the once all-powerful Christian Democrats, Berlusconi, the former property investor who made his fortune after launching Italy’s first private TV network, saw his opportunity to launch a bid for political power.

Drawing on a line from a popular football chant in his choice of Forza Italia as its name, Berlusconi and his allies designed a party that would stand for market-oriented economic policies and a strong national identity combined with traditional conservative values. The party advocated lower taxes, minimal government intervention in the economy and law changes aimed at boosting economic growth.

They wanted to focus their appeal towards moderate voters, former Christian Democrat voters largely, who were - in Berlusconi’s own description - "disoriented, political orphans and who risked being unrepresented".

In fact, the words ‘forza Italia’ - literally ‘Italy force’ but interpreted by English-language commentators as meaning something akin to ‘Go Italy’ - had previously appeared in Christian Democrat slogans during the 1987 election campaign.

An individual with natural charisma, Berlusconi had both the image and the resources to turn the new party into an overnight success. He managed the project himself as both a successful businessman and, by challenging the broadcasting monopoly of the state-owned Rai network, an establishment outsider. Meanwhile, his television channels - Canale 5, Rete 4 and Italia 1 - provided a ready-made platform to connect with the public. His own personality won many of Forza Italia's votes.

Berlusconi waves to a cheering crowd during
his third successful campaign for office

He also seemed to have an innate ability to persuade seemingly incompatible political groups to join coalitions, without which forming a government in Italy is virtually impossible.  

Forza Italia’s immediate success, winning 366 seats in the Chamber of Deputies as the largest party at the 1994 elections, came after Berlusconi had formed a campaigning alliance in the north with Umberto Bossi’s Lega Nord, and in the south with Gianfranco Fini’s post-fascist Alleanza Nazionale, two parties who for the most part despised one another. Lega Nord left the coalition in December and Berlusconi’s first stint as prime minister ended after just 251 days but uniting Bossi and Fini for even a few months could be seen as remarkable.

The centre-left held away for the next five years but Forza Italia regrouped and won power again in 2001 after Berlusconi had brought together the disparate ambitions of north and south again in his Casa delle Libertà - House of Freedoms - alliance. 

This time, Forza Italia and their allies having won almost a third of the vote, Berlusconi was installed as prime minister for a second time, staying in post for four years and 340 days, his executive proving to be the longest lived in the history of the Republic.

Despite being investigated over numerous scandals during his next period in opposition, Berlusconi won a third term as prime minister in 2008, although this time under the banner of Il Popolo della Libertà - People of Freedom - after joining forces with Fini’s Alleanza Nationale. This time, he stayed in office for three years and 192 days.

The merger between the two parties meant that Forza Italia did not officially exist between 2008 and 2013 but with the disbanding of the People of Freedom it was relaunched. Although barred from office himself after being convicted of tax fraud, Berlusconi remained the party’s figurehead until his death in 2023, having been elected to the Senate after his ban expired.

The reformed Forza Italia has yet to achieve the same level of popularity as the original version but remains a significant player in Italian politics and was part of the centre-right coalition led by Fratelli d’Italia (Brothers of Italy), whose victory at the 2022 elections put current prime minister Giorgia Meloni in power.

The Trevi Fountain in Rome, with its backdrop of
the Palazzo Poli, is one of Rome's best-known sights

Travel tip:

The Via dell'Umiltà in Rome is part of the Trevi district in the heart of the city. A beautiful, elegant and historic neighbourhood, it is best known for the Trevi Fountain, which was officially opened in 1762 and has become one of the city’s best-known landmarks.  The district is also home to the Palazzo Barberini, the 17th century palace to which three of Rome’s greatest architects - Carlo Maderno, Francesco Borromini and Gian Lorenzo Bernin - all contributed and which now houses part of the collection of Italy’s National Gallery of Ancient Art. Other notable sights in the district are the Fontana del Tritone and Fontana Barberini, the Palazzo Colonna and the Palazzo Quirinale, official residence of the Italian president.

The Palazzo Chigi, off the Via del Corso, is the
official residence of the Italian prime minister

Travel tip:

Silvio Berlusconi’s official residence during his terms in office as prime minister was the 16th-century Palazzo Chigi, which overlooks the Piazza Colonna and the Via del Corso in Rome. The palace was in the ownership of the Chigi family, part of Roman nobility, from 1659 until the 19th century. It became the residence of the Austro-Hungarian Ambassador to Italy in 1878 before being bought by the Italian state in 1916, when it became the home of the Minister for Colonial Affairs. Later it was the official residence of the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs and in 1961 became the official meeting place of the Council of Ministers, whose president is the head of the Italian government - the prime minister - and who was allowed to use the palace as his official home in Rome.

Also on this day: 

1543: The birth of musician Alfonso Ferrabosco the elder

1880: The birth of cardinal Alfredo Ildefonso Schuster

1946: The birth of operatic soprano Katia Ricciarelli

1950: The birth of basketball player Dino Meneghin

Home

17 January

Pope Gregory XI returns the papacy to Rome

Important date in Roman and papal history

The French Pope, Gregory XI, returned the papacy to Rome, against the wishes of France and several of his cardinals, on this day in 1377.  The move back to Rome was a highly significant act in history as the papacy, from that date onwards, was to remain in the city.  Gregory was born Pierre-Roger De Beaufort in Limoges. He was the last French pope, and he was also the last pope to reign from Avignon, where he had been unanimously elected in 1370.  He immediately gave consideration to returning the papacy to Rome in order to conduct negotiations for reuniting the Eastern and Western Churches and to maintain papal territories against a Florentine revolt being led by the powerful Visconti family.  But Gregory had to shelve his Roman plan temporarily in order to strive for peace between England and France after another phase in the Hundred Years’ War started.  However, in 1375, he defeated Florence in its war against the Papal States and the following year, he listened to the pleas of the mystic Catherine of Siena, later to become a patron saint of Italy, to move the papacy back to Rome.  Read more…

______________________________________

Antonio del Pollaiuolo – artist

Paintings of muscular men show knowledge of anatomy

Renaissance painter, sculptor, engraver and goldsmith Antonio del Pollaiuolo was born on this day in 1433 in Florence.  He was also known as Antonio di Jacopo Pollaiuolo and sometimes as Antonio del Pollaiolo. The last name came from the trade of his father who sold poultry.  Antonio’s brother, Piero, was also an artist and they frequently worked together. Their work showed classical influences and an interest in human anatomy. It was reported that the brothers carried out dissections to improve their knowledge of the subject.  Antonio worked for a time in the Florence workshop of Bartoluccio di Michele where Lorenzo Ghiberti - creator of the bronze doors of the Florence Baptistery - also received his training.  Some of Antonio’s paintings show brutality, such as his depiction of Saint Sebastian, which he painted for the Church of Santissima Annunziata in Florence and presents muscular men in action. His paintings of women show more calmness and display his meticulous attention to fashion details.   Antonio was also successful as a sculptor and a metal worker and although he produced only one engraving, The Battle of the Nude Men, it became one of the most famous prints of the Renaissance.  Read more…

Antonio Moscheni - Jesuit painter

Unique legacy of chapel frescoes in India

The painter Antonio Moscheni, best known for the extraordinary frescoes he created in the chapel of St Aloysius College in Mangalore, India, was born on this day in 1854 in the town of Stezzano, near Bergamo in Lombardy.  St Aloysius, situated in the state of Karnataka in south-west India, was built by Italian Jesuit Missionaries in 1880 and the chapel added four years later.  A beautiful building, it would not look out of place in Rome and the Baroque extravagance of Moscheni's work, which adorns almost every available wall space and ceiling, makes it unique in India.  The chapel welcomes thousands of visitors each year simply to marvel at Moscheni's art for the vibrancy of the colours and the intricacy of the detail. Scenes depicted include the life of St. Aloysius, who as the Italian aristocrat Aloysius Gonzaga became a Jesuit and was studying in Rome when he died at the age of just 23, having devoted himself to caring for the victims of an outbreak of plague.  Also painted are the Apostles, the lives of the Saints and the life of Jesus.  Read more…

______________________________________

Guidobaldo I – Duke of Urbino

Military leader headed a cultured court

Guidobaldo da Montefeltro, who was to become Duke of Urbino, was born on this day in Gubbio in 1472.  He succeeded his father, Federico da Montefeltro, as Duke of Urbino in 1482.  Guidobaldo married Elisabetta Gonzaga, the sister of Francesco II Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua, but they never had any children.  His court at Urbino was one of the most refined and elegant in Italy where literary men were known to congregate.  The writer Baldassare Castiglione painted an idyllic picture of it in his Book of the Courtier.  Castiglione was related on his mother’s side to the Gonzaga family of Mantua and represented them diplomatically.  As a result he met Guidobaldo, Duke of Urbino, and later took up residence in his court among the many distinguished guests.  During this time Castiglione also became a friend of the painter, Raphael, who painted a portrait of him that is now in The Louvre in Paris.  Castiglione’s book, Il Libro del Cortegiano, was written in the form of an imaginary dialogue between Elisabetta Gonzaga and her guests and provides a unique picture of court life at the time. It was published in 1528, the year before he died.  Read more…

_______________________________________

Book of the Day: Avignon of the Popes: City of Exiles, by Edwin Mullins

At the beginning of the 14th century, anarchy in Italy led to the capital of the Christian world being moved from Rome for the first and only time in history. It was a critical moment, and it resulted in seven successive popes remaining in exile for the next 70 years. The city chosen to replace Rome was Avignon. Depending on where you stood at the time. they were 70 years of heaven, or of hell. Opinions invariably ran to extremes, as did the behaviour of the popes themselves. It was during this period of exile that the city witnessed some of the most turbulent events in history, including the suppression of the Knights Templar and the last of the heretical Cathars, the first onslaught of the Black Death, the final collapse of the crusading dream, and the first decades of the Hundred Years War between England and France, in which successive Avignon popes attempted to mediate. The papal flight from Rome was fiercely castigated by Dante in The Divine Comedy, while during the later years of papal Avignon the enigmatic figure of Petrarch, the most celebrated poet and scholar of his day, loomed angrily over the city. In a dramatic denouement, Avignon became home to the anti-popes, rivals and enemies of the re-established Roman papacy. Avignon of the Popes is a portrait sketch of that era. And at the centre of the picture is Avignon itself, as it grew from being a relatively insignificant town on the Rhône to become, albeit briefly, one of the great capitals of the world.

Edwin Mullins was a writer, journalist and filmmaker. A former art correspondent for the Daily Telegraph, he wrote widely on the visual arts and architecture. Among his 20 books are The Pilgrimage to Santiago and In Search of Cluny: God’s Lost Empire.

Buy from Amazon

Home

16 January

Renzo Mongiardino - interior and set designer

Favourite of wealthy clients known as the ‘architect of illusion’

Lorenzo ‘Renzo’ Mongiardino, who became Italy’s leading classic interior designer and a creator of magnificent theatre and film sets, died in Milan on this day in 1998.  He was 81 years old and had never fully recovered from an operation the previous November to install a pacemaker.  Mongiardino, who was nominated for two Academy Awards for Best Art Direction during his career, worked on interior design for an international clientele that included the industrialist and art collector Baron Hans Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza, the business tycoons Aristotle Onassis and Gianni Agnelli, the former Russian prince Stanisław Albrecht Radziwiłł and his socialite wife Lee Radziwill, the fashion designer Gianni Versace, the Lebanese banker Edmond Safra, the Rothschild family and the Hearst family.  Nonetheless, he habitually rejected his reputation as the eminence grise of interior design. ''I'm a creator of ambiance, a scenic designer, an architect but not a decorator,'' he once said.  The only son of Giuseppe Mongiardino, a theatre impresario said to have introduced colour television to Italy, Mongiardino grew up in an 18th-century palazzo in Genoa.  Read more…

_____________________________________

Count Vittorio Alfieri – playwright and poet

Romantic nobleman inspired the oppressed with his writing

Dramatist and poet Count Vittorio Alfieri was born on this day in 1749 in Asti in Piedmont.  He earned himself the title of ‘the precursor of the Risorgimento’ because the predominant theme of his poetry was the overthrow of tyranny and with his dramas he tried to encourage a national spirit in Italy. He has also been called ‘the founder of Italian tragedy.’  Alfieri was educated at the Military Academy of Turin but disliked military life and obtained leave to travel throughout Europe.  In France he was profoundly influenced by studying the writing of Voltaire, Rousseau and Montesquieu and in England he embarked on a doomed affair with an unsuitable woman.  When he returned to Italy in 1772 he settled in Turin and resigned his military commission.  Soon afterwards, he wrote a tragedy, Cleopatra, which was performed to great acclaim in 1775.  He decided to devote himself to literature and began a methodical study of the classics and of Italian poetry.  Since he expressed himself mainly in French, which was the language of the ruling classes in Turin, he went to Tuscany to familiarise himself with pure Italian.  Read more…

____________________________________

Erasmo da Narni - condottiero

Soldier from poor origins became general commander of Venetian armies

One of the most famous condottieri of the Renaissance, Erasmo da Narni, who had a distinguished career as a military leader, died on this day in 1443 in Padua.  Known as Gattamelata, the honey-eyed cat, Erasmo has been immortalised by Donatello’s bronze equestrian statue of him in Piazza del Santo, one of Padua’s main squares.  Born in Narni in Umbria, Erasmo went from a humble household into a military life, serving in turn the rulers of the Papal States, Rome, Florence, and Venice. Condottieri were professional soldiers who were hired by city states to lead mercenary armies on the battlefield.  With his friend, Brandolino Brandolini, he worked for the Assisi lord, Cecchino Broglia, and later, serving under another condottiero, Braccio da Montone, lord of Perugia, he played his part in the conquests of Todi, Terni, Narni, Rieti, and Spoleto and helped win the Battle of Viterbo against Muzio Attendolo Sforza in 1419.  During the War of L’Aquila, Braccio’s army was defeated and the condottiero himself was killed, so Erasmo led the remaining troops into the service of Florence.  Later, Pope Martin V hired Erasmo to recapture the lands he had lost in the battles against Braccio da Montone.  Read more…

____________________________________

Arturo Toscanini - conductor

Talented musician had unexpected career change

World famous orchestra conductor Arturo Toscanini died on this day in 1957.  He served as musical director of La Scala in Milan, the Metropolitan Opera in New York and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.  Toscanini was a well-known musician in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, respected for his amazing musical ear and his photographic memory.  Towards the end of his career he became a household name as director of the NBC Symphony Orchestra because of the radio and television broadcasts and recordings he made.  Toscanini was born in Parma in 1867 and won a scholarship to his local music conservatory where he studied the cello.  He joined the orchestra of an opera company and while they were presenting Aida on tour in Rio de Janeiro the singers went on strike.  They were protesting against their conductor and demanded a substitute. They suggested Toscanini, who they were aware knew the whole opera from memory.  Although he had no previous conducting experience, he was eventually persuaded to take up the baton late in the evening. He led a performance of the long Verdi opera, entirely relying on his memory.  Read more…

Niccolò Piccinni – opera composer

Writer drawn into 18th century Paris rivalry

The composer Niccolò Piccinni, one of the most popular writers of opera in 18th century Europe, was born on this day in 1728 in Bari.  Piccinni, who lived mainly in Naples while he was in Italy, had the misfortune to be placed under house arrest for four years in his 60s, when he was accused of being a republican revolutionary.  He is primarily remembered, though, for having been invited to Paris at the height of his popularity to be drawn unwittingly into a battle between supporters of traditional opera, with its emphasis on catchy melodies and show-stopping arias, and those of the German composer Christoph Willibald Gluck, who favoured solemnly serious storytelling more akin to Greek tragedy.  Piccinni’s father was a musician but tried to discourage his son from following the same career. However, the Bishop of Bari, recognising Niccolò’s talent, arranged for him to attend the Conservatorio di Sant’Onofrio in Capuana in Naples.  He was a prolific writer. His first opera, a comedy entitled Le donne dispettose (The mischievous women) was staged at the Teatro dei Fiorentini in Naples in 1755.  Read more…

______________________________________

Mario Tobino – poet, novelist and psychiatrist

Doctor was torn between literature and his patients

The author and poet who was also a practising psychiatrist, Mario Tobino, was born on this day in 1910 in Viareggio in Tuscany.  Tobino was a prolific writer whose works dealt with social and psychological themes. His novel, Il clandestino, inspired by his experiences fighting as a partisan to liberate Italy in 1944, won him the Premio Strega, the most prestigious Italian literary award.  After completing his degree in medicine in 1936, Tobino embarked on a career working in a mental hospital, treating people with mental disabilities.  He went to work as a doctor in Libya in 1940 but had to flee when war broke out in the country. His experiences were recorded in his book, Il deserto della Libia, which was published in 1952.  In 1953, his novel, Libere donne di Magliano, established him as an important Italian writer. In 1972, another novel, Per le antiche scale won the Premio Campiello, an annual Italian literary award. Both novels were inspired by his experiences as a director of a psychiatric hospital at Maggiano, a suburb of Lucca.  His novel Il manicomio di Pechino, published in 1990, also drew on his medical experiences.  Read more…

____________________________________

Carlo Maria Viganò - controversial archbishop

Former papal ambassador who shocked Catholic Church

Carlo Maria Viganò, the controversial former Apostolic Nuncio to the United States who was twice at the centre of serious corruption allegations against the Vatican, was born on this day in 1941 in Varese, northern Italy.  Viganò, who had occupied one of the most powerful positions in the Vatican before Pope Benedict XVI set him to be his ambassador in Washington in 2011, was a key figure in the so-called Vatileaks scandal in 2012 when the Italian journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi published leaked documents that included letters from Viganò to Pope Benedict and to the Vatican secretary of state Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone complaining of corruption in the awarding of contracts.  The subsequent scandal resulted in the conviction of Benedict’s former butler, Paolo Gabriele, who was found guilty of theft by a Vatican court and handed an 18-month prison sentence.  Viganò’s 2011 allegations pale, however, alongside the extraordinary 11-page document he published seven years later, in which he claimed that high-ranking church officials were implicated in a cover-up surrounding sexual abuse allegations against former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick.  Read more…

____________________________________

Book of the Day: Roomscapes: The Decorative Architecture of Renzo Mongiardino, by Renzo Mongiardino

Roomscapes is not only a beautiful testament to Mongiardino's imaginative creations, the magnificent rooms he re-shaped and decorated in ancient Italian and Parisian palaces, English houses, New York apartments, but it is an important text that analyses space, function, decoration and lighting of rooms. It is meant as a guide to conceive spaces that are inhabited through time and by time. Sketches, drawings, and models by Mongiardino, next to the images of the finished rooms, make the creative process clear and showcase his extraordinary ability and taste. Roomscapes was originally published in 1993 and has long been out of print. The appendix reproduces 16 previously unpublished sketches by Mongiardino belonging to the Raccolta Bertarelli of the Sforza Castle in Milan.

Renzo Mongiardino is universally acclaimed as one of the greatest architects of interiors of the 20th century.

Buy from Amazon

Home