15 February

Destruction of Monte Cassino Abbey

Historic monastery flattened in Allied bombing raid

The Abbey of Monte Cassino, established in 529 and the oldest Benedictine monastery in the world, was destroyed by Allied bombers on this day in 1944 in what is now acknowledged as one of the biggest strategic errors of the Second World War on the Allied side.  The Abbey was attacked despite an agreement signed by both sides with the Vatican that the historic building would be respected as occupying neutral territory.  But Allied commanders, who had seen their infantrymen suffer heavy casualties in trying to advance along the Liri valley, the route of the main highway between Naples and Rome, were convinced that the Germans were using the Abbey, which commands sweeping views of the valley, at least as a point from which to direct operations.  This perception was reinforced by a radio intercept, subsequently alleged to have been wrongly translated, which suggested a German battalion had been stationed in the Abbey, ignoring a 300-metre area around it that was supposed to be out of bounds to soldiers on both sides.   Knowing the outrage their action would prompt, military sources in Britain and the United States leaked details of their suspicions to the newspapers, who obligingly printed stories that seemed to justify the plan.   Read more…

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Charlie Cairoli - circus clown

Milan-born performer who became a Blackpool legend

The circus clown Charlie Cairoli, who would at his peak set a world record by appearing at the Blackpool Tower Circus in England for 40 consecutive seasons, was born in Affori, now a suburb of Milan but then a town in its own right, on this day in 1910.  Cairoli performed at the Tower for the first time in 1939 and returned every year until 1979, quitting only when his health began to fail him.  The run was not broken even by the outbreak of the Second World War, which Britain entered soon after he arrived, or his own arrest as a suspected ‘enemy alien’. He was the Tower’s most popular attraction for almost all of those years.  Cairoli, though born in Italy, was actually from a French family, albeit one of Italian descent, who christened him Hubert Jean Charles Cairoli.  His father, Jean-Marie, was also a clown; his mother, Eugenie, came from another French circus family with Italian heritage, the Rocono. Charles - known as Carletto - and his brother Louis-Philippe became part of the show as young children. Carletto made his debut at the age of seven.   At that age, he was doing little more than fetching and carrying for his parents, who were the stars.  Read more…

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Totò – comic actor

50 years on, remembered still as Italy’s funniest performer

The comic actor Antonio De Curtis, universally known as Totò and still winning polls as the most popular Italian comedian of all time more than a half-century after his death, was born on this day in 1898 in Naples.  Totò had a distinguished career in theatre, wrote poetry and sang, but is best remembered for the 97 films in which he appeared between 1937 and his death in 1967, many of which were made simply as a platform for his inimitable talent.  Although he worked in dramatic roles for some of Italy’s most respected directors, it was for his comedy that he was most appreciated.  His characters were typically eccentric, his acting style sometimes almost extravagantly expressive both physically and vocally.  In his humour, he drew on his body and his face to maximum effect but also possessed an inherent sense of timing in the way he delivered his lines. Often, at the peak of his screen career with his characters so well defined, he would dispense with much of his script and simply ad lib, giving free rein to the cynicism and irreverence that came naturally.  Such was his popularity that after his death from a heart attack at the age of 69 he was given funerals both in Rome, where he lived, and in his native Naples.  Read more…

Galileo Galilei – astronomer and physicist

Scholar has been judged to be the founder of modern science 

Renaissance scientist Galileo Galilei was born on this day in 1564 in Pisa.  His astronomical observations confirmed the phases of Venus, discovered the four largest satellites of Jupiter and analysed sunspots. Also among his inventions was a military compass.  Galileo was educated at a monastery near Florence and considered entering the priesthood but he enrolled instead at the University of Pisa to study medicine.  In 1581 he noticed a swinging chandelier being moved to swing in larger and smaller arcs by air currents. He experimented with two swinging pendulums and found they kept time together although he started one with a large sweep and the other with a smaller sweep. It was almost 100 years before a swinging pendulum was used to create an accurate timepiece.  He talked his father into letting him study mathematics and natural philosophy instead of medicine and by 1589 had been appointed to the chair of Mathematics at Pisa.  He moved to the University of Padua where he taught geometry, mechanics and astronomy until 1610.  Galileo met with opposition from other astronomers and was investigated by the Roman Inquisition in 1615.  Read more…

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Carlo Maria Martini – Cardinal

Liberal leanings prevented scholar’s elevation to the papacy

Carlo Maria Martini, who was once a candidate to become Pope, was born on this day in 1927 in Orbassano in the province of Turin.  As Cardinal Martini, he was known to be tolerant in areas of sexuality and strong on ecumenism, and he was the leader of the liberal opposition to Pope John Paul II. He published more than 50 books, which sold millions of copies worldwide.  Martini was a contender for the Papacy in the 2005 conclave and, according to Vatican sources at the time, he received more votes than Joseph Ratzinger in the first round  But Ratzinger, who was considered the more conservative of the candidates, ended up with a higher number of votes in subsequent rounds and was elected Pope Benedict XVI.  Martini had entered the Jesuit order in 1944 when he was 17 and he was ordained at the age of 25, which was considered unusually early.  His doctoral theses, in theology at the Gregorian University and in scripture at the Pontifical Biblical Institute, were thought to be so brilliant that they were immediately published.  After completing his studies, Martini had a successful academic career.  Read more… 

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Book of the Day: Cassino '44: The Bloodiest Battle of the Italian Campaign, by James Holland

There is no such thing as an easy victory in war but after triumph in Tunisia, the sweeping success of the Sicilian invasion, and with the Italian surrender, the Allies were confident that they would be in Rome before Christmas 1943.  And yet it didn't happen. Hitler ordered his forces to dig in and fight for every yard, thus setting the stage for one of the grimmest and most attritional campaigns of the Second World War.  By the start of 1944, the Allies found themselves coming up against the Gustav Line: a formidable barrier of wire, minefields, bunkers and booby traps, woven into a giant chain of mountains and river valleys that stretched the width of Italy where at its strongest point perched the Abbey of Monte Cassino. It would take five long bitter winter months and the onset of summer before the Allies could finally bludgeon their way north and capture Rome. By then, more than 75,000 troops and civilians had been killed and the historic abbey and entire towns and villages had been laid waste. Following a rich cast of characters from both sides - from frontline infantry to aircrew, from clerks to battlefield commanders, and from politicians and civilians caught up in the middle of the maelstrom - James Holland has drawn widely on diaries, letters and contemporary sources to write the definitive account of this brutal battle. Casino ‘44 is a compelling and often heart-breaking narrative, told in the moment, as the events played out, and from the perspective of those who lived, fought and died there.

James Holland is an internationally acclaimed and award-winning historian, writer, and broadcaster. The author of a number of best-selling histories including Brothers In Arms and Normandy '44, he is also the author of nine works of fiction and a dozen Ladybird Experts.

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14 February

Otto e mezzo - Fellini's masterpiece

Creative crisis spawned director's tour de force

The film Otto e mezzo (8½), regarded by some critics as the director Federico Fellini's greatest work, was released in Italy on this day in 1963.  It was categorised as an avant-garde comedy drama but the description hardly does it justice given its extraordinary individuality, evolving from conception to completion as an interweaving of fantasy and reality in which life not so much imitates art as becomes one and the same thing.  By the early '60s, Fellini was already a three-times Oscar winner following the success of La strada, Nights of Cabiria and La dolce vita, the last-named having also won the Palme d'Or at Cannes.  La dolce vita had signalled Fellini's move away from the neo-realism that characterised cinema in Italy in the immediate post-war years towards the surreal interpretations of life and human nature that became popular with later directors and came to define Fellini's art.  While that movie was generating millions of dollars at the box office and turning Marcello Mastroianni and Anita Ekberg into international stars, Fellini was under pressure from his producers to come up with a sequel.  Read more…

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Valentina Vezzali – fencer

Police officer is Italy’s most successful female athlete

The fencer Valentina Vezzali, whose three Olympic and six World Championship individual gold medals make her Italy’s most decorated female athlete of all time, was born on this day in 1974 in the town of Iesi in Marche.  A police officer who sat in the Italian Chamber of Deputies as a representative for Marche until 2018, Vezzali retired from competition after the 2016 World Championships.  Her haul of six Olympics golds in total – three individual and three from the team event – has not been bettered by any Italian athlete, male or female.  Two other Italian fencers from different eras – Edoardo Mangiarotti and Nedo Nadi – also finished their careers with six golds. Fencing has far and away been Italy’s most successful Olympic discipline, accruing 49 gold medals and 125 medals in total, more than twice the number for any other sport.  Alongside the German shooter Ralf Schumann, the Slovak slalom canoeist Michal Martikán and the Japanese judo player Ryoko Tani, Vezzali is one of only four athletes in the history of the Summer Olympics to have won five medals in the same individual event.  Read more…

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The Feast of the Lovers

A day for flowers, chocolates and padlocks

Today is called La festa degli innamorati (The Feast of the Lovers) in Italy when couples celebrate their love for each other.  Italian lovers give each other flowers and chocolates and celebrate with romantic dinners just like the rest of the world.  Chocolatiers Perugina make a special version of their Baci chocolate for the occasion in a shiny, red wrapper with a red cherry in the centre rather than the traditional hazelnut.  Florence and Venice are traditionally considered to be the most romantic places in Italy, but Verona, the city of Romeo and Juliet, puts on several days of celebration for the festival each year, featuring a programme of poetry, music and events, including a Romeo and Juliet half-marathon.  The streets around Piazza Bra and Juliet’s house and balcony are illuminated along with the tallest building in the city, the Lamberti tower.  The recent fashion for locking padlocks - lucchetti dell’amore - to bridges, railings and lamp posts to demonstrate never-ending love was started in Italy after the publication of the novel Ho voglio di te (I want you) by Federico Moccia in 2006.  Read more…

Jacopo Bassano – painter

Artist loved brilliant colours and drew his inspiration from real life

The artist who became known as Jacopo Bassano died on this day in 1592 in Bassano del Grappa in Veneto in northern Italy.  He was born in about 1510 in Bassano del Grappa.  According to some accounts, he was christened Jacopo dal Ponte, although the inscription on his statue in the town names him Giacomo da Ponte. His father, Francesco il Vecchio, was already a successful painter in Bassano and had established a workshop that produced mostly religious works.  Jacopo became an apprentice in his father’s workshop while still a young boy. He made his way to Venice when he was about 20, where he studied under Bonifazio de Pitati, who was also known as Bonifazio Veronese.  While in Venice, he met famous artists, such as Titian and il Pordenone, and his work from this period shows Titian’s influence and demonstrates his lifelong appreciation of the great artist’s work.  Jacopo Bassano’s earliest paintings also show his love of the brilliant colours used by Titian.  Bassano’s Supper at Emmaus (1538), originally commissioned for a church, uses rich luminous colours that distinguish the figures from their background.  Read more…

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San Valentino and Sant’Antonino

Celebrations for two different Italian saints

Saint Valentine, a third century Roman martyr, is commemorated with a feast day on this day every year.  His name has become associated with the tradition of courtly love but all that is really known about him is that he was martyred and buried at a cemetery on the Via Flaminia in Rome on 14 February.  His feast day was first established in 496 by a Pope who revered him. It is thought he was imprisoned and tortured and then hastily buried, but that his disciples later retrieved his body.  During the Middle Ages it was believed that birds paired in mid-February and this is probably why Saint Valentine’s Day became associated with romance.  But while lovers all over the world raise a glass to Saint Valentine on this day, residents and visitors in Sorrento celebrate the festival of Sant’Antonino, the city’s patron saint.  Sant’Antonino Abate died on 14 February, 626. He is credited with saving the life of a child swallowed by a whale and also protecting Sorrento against plague and invasion.  Each year on the anniversary of his death, a silver statue of Sant’Antonino is carried in a procession through the streets of Sorrento.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Fellini: The Sixties, by Manoah Bowman

Style. Beauty. Passion. Vision. These are just a few of the words often used to describe the films of the single most celebrated director in Italy, and one of the most important directors the world has ever known: Federico Fellini. More than 50 years since their initial releases, his films of the 1960s still inspire, shock, and delight. More than just encapsulating the '60s, these films also helped define the style of the decade. With a staggering 12 Academy Award nominations between his four feature films during this period, Fellini reached the heights of fame, film artistry, and worldwide prominence. Studied, analysed, and re-released over the years, these films continue to amaze each new generation that discovers them. Their impeccable style makes them timeless. Their images make them unforgettable. Their passion brings them to life. And their singular vision makes them unique in all of cinema. Fellini: The Sixties is a stunning photographic journey through the director's most iconic classics: La dolce vita, Otto e mezzo, Juliet of the Spirits and Fellini Satyricon. Carefully selected imagery from the Independent Visions photographic archive, many published here for the first time, illuminate these films as they have never been seen before, and reveal fascinating details of the director's working style and ebullient personality. With more than 150 photographs struck from original negatives, these images spring to life from the page with the depth and quality of the films themselves. Complemented with insightful essays from contemporary writers, Fellini: The Sixties is a true testament to the man and his work, a remarkable compendium of the legendary filmmaker's greatest achievements. 

Manoah Bowman's other works include Natalie Wood: Reflections On a Legendary Life and, as co-author. Grace Kelly: Hollywood Dream Girl. He maintains the Independent Visions photographic archives, a collection featuring more than a million unique images that details the history of cinema and television.

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13 February

NEW - The Challenge of Barletta

The day an Italian red wine proved too good for the French to resist

A group of 13 Italian cavaliers won a duel, which has since gone down in history, against 13 French mounted soldiers, on this day in 1503 near Trani in the region of Puglia.  The celebrated contest has become known as the Challenge of Barletta (Disfida di Barletta), taking its name from a town in the area that later commemorated the victory with a monument.  It is considered one of the earliest displays of Italian national pride, if not the first of its kind, even though it was fought while a war was going on between French and Spanish troops, who were battling to win control of the south of Italy. The Challenge was provoked by a group of French soldiers who had been taken as prisoners of war by the Spanish. They had been invited to a banquet in Barletta at a local osteria, along with some of the Italian knights who were fighting on behalf of the Spanish.  A wine cellar in Barletta has now been named La Cantina della Sfida and it houses a museum commemorating the duel. However, it is not certain whether this was the original setting for the banquet where the French cavaliers issued the challenge. Read more...

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Pierluigi Collina - football referee

Italian arbiter seen as the best in game's history

Pierluigi Collina, arguably the best and certainly the most recognisable football referee in the history of the game, was born on this day in 1960 in Bologna.  Collina, who was in charge of the 1999 Champions League final and the 2002 World Cup final, was named FIFA's referee of the year for six consecutive seasons.  He was renowned for his athleticism, his knowledge of the laws of the game and for applying them with even-handedness and respect for the players, while using his distinctive appearance to reinforce his authority on the field.  Standing 1.88m (6ft 2ins) tall and with piercing blue eyes, Collina is also completely hairless as a result of suffering a severe form of alopecia in his early 20s, giving him an intimidating presence on the field.  Growing up in Bologna, the son of a civil servant and a schoolteacher, Collina shared the dream of many Italian boys in that he wanted to become a professional footballer.  In reality, he was not quite good enough, although he was a decent central defender who played amateur football to a good standard.   When he was 17 and at college, he was persuaded to take a referee's course and displayed a natural aptitude.  Read more…

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Benvenuto Cellini – sculptor and goldsmith

Creator of the famous Perseus bronze had a dark history

The colourful life of the Renaissance artist Benvenuto Cellini ended on this day in 1571 with his death in Florence at the age of 70.  A contemporary of Michelangelo, the Mannerist Cellini was most famous for his bronze sculpture of Perseus with the Head of Medusa, which still stands where it was erected in 1554 in the Loggia dei Lanzi of the Piazza della Signoria in Florence, and for the table sculpture in gold he created as a salieri - salt cellar - for Francis I of France.  The Cellini Salt Cellar, as it is generally known, measuring 26cm (10ins) by 33.5cm (13.2ins), is now kept at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, with an insurance value of $60 million.  His works apart, Cellini was also known for an eventful personal life, in which his violent behaviour frequently landed him in trouble. He killed at least two people while working in Rome as a young man and claimed also to have shot dead Charles III, Duke of Bourbon, during the 1527 Siege of Rome by mutinous soldiers of the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V.  Cellini was also imprisoned for alleged embezzlement of the gems from the tiara of Pope Clement VII.  Read more…

Isabella d’Este – Marchioness of Mantua

‘The First Lady of the world’

Isabella d’Este, who was a leading cultural and political figure during the Renaissance, died on this day in 1539 in Mantua.  She had been a patron of the arts, a leader of fashion, a politically astute ruler and a diplomat. Such was her influence that she was once described as ‘the First Lady of the world’.  Her life is documented by her correspondence, which is still archived in Mantua. She received about 28,000 letters and wrote about 12,000. More than 2000 of her letters have survived.  Isabella grew up in a cultured family in the city of Ferrara. Her father was Ercole I d’Este, Duke of Ferrara, and her mother was Eleanor of Naples.  She received a classical education and had opportunities to meet famous scholars and artists. She was reputed to have frequently discussed the classics and affairs of state with ambassadors who came to the court.  When Isabella was just six years old she was betrothed to Francesco, the heir to the Marquess of Mantua.  At the age of 15 she married him by proxy. He had succeeded his father and become Francesco II and she became his Marchioness.   In 1493 Isabella gave birth to a daughter, Eleonora, the first of her eight children.  Read more…

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Antonia Pozzi - poet

Tragic writer whose work was published only after her death

The poet Antonia Pozzi, who came to be regarded as one of the greatest Italian poets of the 20th century, was born on this day in 1912 in Milan. Born into a wealthy family, she enjoyed a privileged lifestyle but seemingly a difficult relationship with her parents. She kept diaries and began to write poems as a teenager, although none came to light until she died in tragic circumstances at the age of just 26. Afterwards, her notebooks were found to contain more than 300 poems, which revealed her to be one of the most original voices in 20th century Italian literature.  Most have subsequently been published, to great critical acclaim.  The daughter of Roberto Pozzi, a prominent Milan lawyer, and his aristocratic wife, Countess Lina Cavagna Sangiuliani, Antonia’s literary talent may have been inherited from her great-grandfather on her mother’s side, the 19th century poet and writer, Tommaso Grossi.  As a teenager, she had multiple interests, studying German, English and French and travelling both within Italy and further afield, to France, Austria, Germany, England, Greece and North Africa, always indulging her love of photography.  Read more…

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Fire at Teatro di San Carlo

Royal theatre reopens quickly after blaze 

Fire broke out during a dress rehearsal for a ballet at Teatro di San Carlo in Naples on this day in 1816.  The flames spread quickly, destroying a large part of the building in less than an hour.  The external walls were the only things left standing, but on the orders of Ferdinand IV, King of Naples, the prestigious theatre was rebuilt at once.  It was reconstructed following designs drawn up by architect Antonio Niccolini for a horseshoe-shaped auditorium with 1,444 seats. A stunning fresco was painted in the centre of the ceiling above the auditorium depicting a classical subject, Apollo presenting to Minerva the greatest poets of the world.  The rebuilding work took just ten months to complete and the theatre reopened to the public in January 1817.  Teatro di San Carlo had opened for the first time in 1737, way ahead of Teatro alla Scala in Milan and La Fenice in Venice.  Built in Via San Carlo close to Piazza del Plebiscito, the main square in Naples, Teatro di San Carlo had quickly become one of the most important opera houses in Europe, known for its excellent productions.  The original theatre was designed by Giovanni Antonio Medrano for the Bourbon King of Naples, Charles I, and took only eight months to build.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: The Rules of the Game, by Pierluigi Collina

On 30 June, 2002 Pierluigi Collina, universally acknowledged to be the world's finest referee, officiated over Brazil and Germany in the World Cup Final. A matter of weeks later, he was back on the field refereeing a Italian Cup first round encounter between Sampdoria and Siena. This unique vantage point makes Collina perfectly placed to comment on the game, on the stars, the media and the matches he has overseen, including England's world cup victory over Argentina and Manchester United's dramatic treble winning European Cup Final. The Rules of the Game takes us as never before into the world of the referee, the preparation needed for each game, the managing of players and the other officials and the camaraderie behind the scenes. Collina describes how it feels to make a difficult decision, the pressures from the crowd and from the players while taking us through the most significant matches he has refereed. But more than anything this is Pierluigi Collina's chance to speak out about the game he loves. His passionate, expert and, sometimes controversial views are compulsory reading for anyone with a passing interest in the beautiful game. 

Pierluigi Collina was born in Bologna in 1960. By trade a financial consultant, he has become one of the greatest referees of all time, having officiated at the World Cup Final, Champions League Final and Olympic Final. He lives in Viareggio with his wife and two children.

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The Challenge of Barletta

The day an Italian red wine proved too good for the French to resist

A poster advertising the annual
commemoration of the Challenge

A group of 13 Italian cavaliers won a duel, which has since gone down in history, against 13 French mounted soldiers, on this day in 1503 near Trani in the region of Puglia.

The celebrated contest has become known as the Challenge of Barletta (Disfida di Barletta), taking its name from a town in the area that later commemorated the victory with a monument. 

It is considered one of the earliest displays of Italian national pride, if not the first of its kind, even though it was fought while a war was going on between French and Spanish troops, who were battling to win control of the south of Italy.

The Challenge was provoked by a group of French soldiers who had been taken as prisoners of war by the Spanish. They had been invited to a banquet in Barletta at a local osteria, along with some of the Italian knights who were fighting on behalf of the Spanish.

A wine cellar in Barletta has now been named La Cantina della Sfida and it houses a museum commemorating the duel. However, it is not certain whether this was the original setting for the banquet where the French cavaliers issued the challenge.

A French knight, Charles de Torgues - also known as Guy de la Motte - had drunk too much of the local red wine, Rosso Barletta, and made disparaging remarks about the courage of Italian soldiers in general, provoking an argument among the guests.

To solve the dispute, the French challenged the Italians to a mounted tournament between 13 French and 13 Italian cavaliers. The rules were imposed by the French, who mistakenly thought the Italians would refuse the challenge because they would be superstitious about the number 13.

A monument in Barletta keeps the
memory alive after 500 years

However, the Italians, captained by Ettore Fieramosca, accepted the challenge. The fighting, using swords and axes, wielded by cavaliers on horseback, ended when all the French cavaliers had been either captured or wounded. The Italians therefore won the tournament and the French had to surrender their weapons and horses to them. They also had to pay the Italians a ransom for their knights, because of the rules they had set for the challenge themselves, in advance.

It is said that there were long celebrations in Barletta following the victory by the Italian knights and now every year on February 13 the event is commemorated in the city.

Barletta has become known as Citta della Disfida - City of the Challenge. The writer Massimo d’Azeglio, who went on to become prime minister of Piedmont following in the footsteps of Cavour, wrote a novel about the event in 1833, Ettore Fieramosca, or La disfida di Barletta. 

A humorous version of the tournament was featured in the 1976 film Il Soldato del Ventura. 

And Mussolini once referred to the event to try to stimulate national feeling in the 20th century. He ignored the fact that in 1503 Italy did not exist as a unified country. He also overlooked the detail that at the time of their duel with the French, the Italian cavaliers were using their expertise to fight on behalf of the Spanish, who then went on to rule the south of Italy for two centuries. 

Some of the exhibits on display in the
museum in the Cantina della Disfida

Travel tip:

Barletta is a city and comune in Puglia on the Adriatic coast. It is the capoluogo, along with Andria and Trani, of the province of Barletta-Andria-Trani. The area of Barletta also includes part of the battlefield of Cannae, an important archaeological site because of the major battle fought there in 216 BC between the Carthaginians and the Romans, which was won for the Carthaginians by their General, Hannibal. Barletta is also home to the Colossus of Barletta, a bronze statue of a Roman emperor standing about four metres, or 13 feet, tall. The Colossus, which is known to local people as Eraclo, is the biggest surviving statue from the late Roman empire.

Trani's white stone cathedral
is one of the city's attractions

Travel tip:

The celebrated duel between the French and the Italians took place in countryside near Trani, on the plains between Corato and Andria. Trani is a beautiful seaport on the Adriatic  coast to the north west of Bari. Trani still has its 13th century fort, which has now been restored and has been opened to the public as a museum and performance venue. Trani’s white stone cathedral, which was consecrated in the 12th century, is dedicated to Saint Nicholas the Pilgrim, a Greek traveller, who died in Trani in 1094 while making a pilgrimage to Rome. Trani also produces its own prestigious wine, Moscato di Trani DOC, a golden dessert wine made from grapes grown in the area. 

Also on this day:

1539: The death of Isabella d’Este, Marchioness of Mantua

1571: The death of sculptor and goldsmith Benvenuto Cellini

1816: Fire damages the Teatro San Carlo in Naples

1912: The birth of poet Antonia Pozzi

1960: The birth of football referee Pierluigi Collina

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