7 March

Alessandro Manzoni – novelist

Writer who produced the greatest novel in Italian literature

Italy’s most famous novelist, Alessandro Manzoni, was born on this day in 1785 in Milan.  Manzoni was the author of I promessi sposi (The Betrothed), the first novel to be written in modern Italian, a language that could be understood by everyone.  The novel caused a sensation when it was first published in 1825. It looked at Italian history through the eyes of the ordinary citizen and sparked pro-unification feelings in many Italians who read it, becoming a symbol of the Risorgimento movement.  I promessi sposi is now considered to be the most important novel in Italian literature and is still required reading for many Italian schoolchildren.  Manzoni spent a lot of his childhood in Lecco, on Lago di Lecco, where his father’s family originated, and he chose to set his great work there.  Lago di Lecco is an arm of Lago di Como and is surrounded by dramatic mountain scenery that is so stunning it is said to have inspired Leonardo da Vinci for settings for his paintings.   More than two centuries later, fans of Manzoni’s novel continue to visit Lecco to see the places he described and the buildings featured in the book that remain.  Read more…

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Saint Thomas Aquinas - philosopher

Theologian who synthesised Aristotle’s ideas with principles of Christianity

Saint Thomas Aquinas, known in Italian as Tommaso d’Aquino, died on this day in 1274 at Fossanova near Terracina in Lazio.  A Dominican friar who became a respected theologian and philosopher, D’Aquino was canonised in 1323, less than 50 years after his death.  He was responsible for two masterpieces of theology, Summa theologiae and Summa contra gentiles. The first sought to explain the Christian faith to students setting out to study theology, the second to explain the Christian faith and defend it in the face of hostile attacks.  As a poet, D'Aquino wrote some of the most beautiful hymns in the church’s liturgy, which are still sung today.  D’Aquino is recognised by the Roman Catholic Church as its foremost philosopher and theologian and he had a considerable influence on the development of Western thought and ideas. His commentaries on Scripture and on Aristotle are an important part of his legacy and he is still regarded as the model teacher for those studying for the priesthood.  D’Aquino was born in Roccasecca in the province of Frosinone in about 1225 in the castle owned by his father, who was Count of Aquino.  Read more…

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Luciano Spalletti - football manager

National coach has long record of success

The football manager Luciano Spalletti, who led Napoli to their first Serie A title since the Diego Maradona era before being appointed head coach to Italy’s national team, was born on this day in 1959 in the Tuscan town of Certaldo, just under 50km (31 miles) southwest of Florence.  A late starter as a professional player, at 64 Spalletti became the oldest winning coach in the history of the Italian championship when Napoli won the 2022-23 scudetto.  The achievement turned him into a hero in Naples, where fans celebrated in scenes not witnessed in the southern Italian city since Napoli won two titles in four years with the late Maradona as captain and talisman, the second of which was 33 years earlier in the 1989-90 campaign.  Having hinted before the season finished that he was thinking about taking time out of football, Spalletti confirmed ahead of the final fixture that he would be leaving the club to take a year’s sabbatical.  In the event, his break from the game lasted only three months. Following Roberto Mancini’s resignation, Spalletti was appointed head coach of the Italian national team, officially taking charge on September 1, 2023.  Read more…

Baldassare Peruzzi - architect and painter

Pupil of Bramante who left mark on Rome

The architect and painter Baldassare Peruzzi, who trained under Donato Bramante and was a contemporary of Raphael, was born on this day in 1481 in a small town near Siena.   Peruzzi worked in his home city and in Rome, where he spent many years as one of the architects of the St Peter’s Basilica project but where he was also responsible for two outstanding buildings in his own right - the Villa Farnesina and the Palazzo Massimo alle Colonne.  The Villa Farnesina, a summer house commissioned by the Sienese banker Agostino Chigi in the Trastevere district, is unusual for its U-shaped floor plan, with a five-bay loggia between the arms.  Raphael and Sebastiano del Piombo were among those who helped decorate the villa with frescoes, but Peruzzi is acknowledged as the chief designer, possibly aided by Giuliano da Sangallo. Some of the frescoed paintings on the walls of the interior rooms are also by Peruzzi. One example is the Sala delle Prospettive, in which the walls are painted to create the illusion of standing in an open-air terrace, lined by pillars, looking out over a continuous landscape.  Read more…

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Filippo Juvarra – architect

Baroque designer influenced the look of ‘royal Turin’

Architect and stage set designer Filippo Juvarra was born on this day in 1678 in Messina in Sicily.  Some of his best work can be seen in Turin today as he worked for Victor Amadeus II of Savoy from 1714 onwards. The buildings Juvarra designed for Turin made him famous and he was subsequently invited to work in Portugal, Spain, London and Paris.  Juvarra was born into a family of goldsmiths and engravers but moved to Rome in 1704 to study architecture with Carlo and Francesco Fontana.  He was commissioned to design stage sets to begin with, but in 1706 he won a contest to design the new sacristy at St Peter’s Basilica.  He then designed the small Antamoro Chapel for the church of San Girolamo della Carità with his friend, the French sculptor, Pierre Le Gros. He was later to design the main altar for the Duomo in Bergamo in Lombardy.   One of his masterpieces was the Basilica of Superga, built in 1731 on a mountain overlooking the city of Turin, which later became a mausoleum for the Savoy family.  It was said to have taken 14 years to flatten the mountain top.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: The Betrothed: I Promessi Sposi (Penguin Classics), by Alessandro Manzoni. Introduced and translated by Bruce Penman

Set in Lombardy during the Spanish occupation of the late 1620s, The Betrothed tells the story of two young lovers, Renzo and Lucia, prevented from marrying by the petty tyrant Don Rodrigo, who desires Lucia for himself. Forced to flee, they are then cruelly separated, and must face many dangers including plague, famine and imprisonment, and confront a variety of strange characters - the mysterious Nun of Monza, the fiery Father Cristoforo and the sinister 'Unnamed' - in their struggle to be reunited. A vigorous portrayal of enduring passion, The Betrothed's exploration of love, power and faith presents a whirling panorama of seventeenth-century Italian life and is one of the greatest European historical novels.

Alessandro Manzoni was born in 1785. He wrote throughout his life, but suffered from a nervous disorder which grew progressively worse through his lifetime. He died in 1873.  The late Bruce Penman was a versatile linguist who had a good reading knowledge of 10 languages, four of which he spoke fluently. His translations from Italian won him a number of prizes and awards.

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6 March

Giovanni Battista Bugatti - executioner

‘Mastro Titta’ ended 516 lives in long career

Giovanni Battista Bugatti, who served as the official executioner for the Papal States from 1796 to 1864, was born on this day in 1779 in Senigallia, a port town on the Adriatic coast about 30km (19 miles) northwest of the city of Ancona.  Bugatti, who became known by the nickname Mastro Titta - a corruption of the Italian maestro di giustizia - master of justice - in Roman dialect, carried out 516 executions in his 68-year career.  He was the longest-serving executioner in the history of the Papal States.  The circumstances of him being granted such an important role in Roman life at the age of just 17 are not known.  What is documented is that while not carrying out his grim official duties he kept a shop selling painted umbrellas and other souvenirs next to his home in the Borgo district, in Vicolo del Campanile, a short distance from Castel Sant’Angelo, which served as a prison during the time of the Papal States.  It seemed an incongruous day job for someone whose very name struck a chill among Rome’s criminal fraternity. Yet he treated his responsibilities with the utmost solemnity, leaving his home early in the morning on the days an execution was to take place, dressed in his scarlet executioner’s coat.  Read more…

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Francesco Guicciardini - writer and diplomat

Friend of Machiavelli among first to record history in context

The historian and statesman Francesco Guicciardini, best known for writing Storia d'Italia, a book that came to be regarded as a classic history of Italy, was born on this day in 1483 in Florence.  Along with his contemporary Niccolò Machiavelli, Guicciardini is considered one of the major political writers of the Italian Renaissance.  Guicciardini was an adviser and confidant to three popes, the governor of several central Italian states, ambassador, administrator and military captain.  He had a long association with the Medici family, rulers of Florence.  Storia d'Italia - originally titled 'La historia di Italia' - was notable for Guicciardini's skilful analysis of interrelating political movements in different states and his ability to set in context and with objectivity events in which sometimes he was a direct participant.  Born into a prominent Florentine family who were influential in politics and long-standing supporters of the Medici, Giucciardini was educated in the classics before being sent to study law at a number of universities, including Padua, Ferrara and Pisa.  He was interested in pursuing a career in the priesthood but his father, Piero, considered the church to have become decadent.  Read more…

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La traviata - the world's favourite opera

Verdi's masterpiece performed for the first time

Giuseppe Verdi's opera, La traviata, was performed in front of a paying audience for the first time on this day in 1853.  The premiere took place at Teatro La Fenice, the opera house in Venice with which Verdi had a long relationship, one that saw him establish his fame as a composer.  La traviata would ultimately cement his reputation as a master of opera after the success of Rigoletto and Il trovatore.  La traviata has become the world's favourite opera, inasmuch as no work has been performed more often, yet the reception for the opening performance was mixed, to say the least.  Reportedly there was applause and cheering at the end of the first act but a much changed atmosphere in the theatre in the second act, during which some members of the audience jeered.  Their displeasure was said to be aimed in part at the two male principals, the baritone Felice Varesi and the tenor Lodovico Graziani, neither of whom was at his best.  There was also criticism of the soprano Fanny Salvini-Donatelli, the first to be given the role of Violetta, the opera's heroine.   Although an acclaimed singer, Salvini-Donatelli was 38 years old and somewhat overweight.  Read more…

Augusto Odone – medical pioneer

Father who invented ‘Lorenzo’s Oil’ for sick son

Augusto Odone, the father who invented a medicine to treat his incurably ill son despite having no medical training, was born on this day in 1933 in Rome.  Odone’s son, Lorenzo, was diagnosed with the rare metabolic condition ALD (Adrenoleukodystrophy) at the age of six. Augusto and his American-born wife, Michaela, were told that little could be done and that Lorenzo would suffer from increasing paralysis and probably die within two years.  Refusing simply to do nothing, the Odones, who lived in Washington, where Augusto was an economist working for the World Bank, threw themselves into discovering everything that was known about the condition and the biochemistry of the nervous system, contacting every doctor, biologist and researcher they could find who had researched the condition and assembled them for a symposium.  Drawing on this pooled knowledge, and with the help of Hugo Moser, a Swiss-born professor of neurology at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, they eventually came up with the idea of combining extracts of olive oil and rapeseed oil in a medicine that would break down the long-chain fatty acids in the human body that were considered a major cause of the nerve damage suffered by people with ALD.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: City of Echoes: A New History of Rome, its Popes and its People, by Jessica Wärnberg

In Rome the echoes of the past resound clearly in its palaces and monuments, and in the remains of the ancient imperial city. But another presence has dominated Rome for 2,000 years - the pope, whose actions and influence echo down the ages. In this epic tale, historian Jessica Wärnberg tells, for the first time, the story of Rome through the lens of its popes, illuminating how these remarkable (and unremarkable) men have transformed lives and played a crucial role in deciding the fate of the city.  Emerging as the anonymous leader of a marginal cult in the humblest quarters of the city, less than 300 years later the pope sat enthroned in a gilt basilica, endorsed by the emperor himself. Eventually, the Roman pontiff would supplant even the emperors, becoming the de facto ruler of Rome and preeminent leader of the Christian world.  Shifting elegantly between the panoramic and the personal, the spiritual and the profane, City of Echoes is a fresh and often surprising take on a city, a people and an institution that is at once familiar and elusive.

Jessica Wärnberg is a historian of the religious and political history of Europe, with a background in the history of art. She has written for academic journals and popular magazines. In Rome, the city she knows best, she has worked extensively in the archives of the Vatican and the Jesuits. 

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5 March

NEW - Launch of Corriere della Sera

Italy’s biggest-selling daily newspaper

Corriere della Sera, one of Italy’s oldest daily newspapers, began its unbroken production run on this day in 1876.  Of the 22 newspapers with a countrywide circulation, only Il Sole 24 Ore, which made its first appearance in 1865, and La Stampa, which launched in 1866, have a longer continuous history than Corriere della Sera.  Based in Milan, Corriere once sold more than one million copies each day. In common with newspapers across the globe, daily sales have tumbled as readers switch to online sources for news coverage. Yet, even though daily sales have slipped to below 250,000 today, it outstrips nearest rival La Repubblica by around 90,000.  Corriere’s founding-editor was Eugenio Torelli-Viollier, a Naples-born Milan journalist who envisaged a newspaper that would establish a reputation for objective analysis, with a centre-right stance in its political standpoint.  Initially, the ‘Evening Courier’, as the name translates, consisted of just four pages, each of five columns, including an editorial written by Torelli-Viollier and the first instalment of a serial novel. Remarkably, the design of the newspaper’s title masthead has never been changed. Read more…

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Giovanni Battista Tiepolo – artist

Painter’s decorative work can be seen all over Venice

Painter and printmaker Giovanni Battista Tiepolo was born on this day in 1696 in Venice.  Also sometimes known as Gianbattista or Giambattista Tiepolo, his output was prolific and he enjoyed success not only in Italy, but in Germany and Spain as well.  Highly regarded right from the beginning of his career, he has been described by experts as the greatest decorative artist of 18th century Europe. Although much of his work was painted directly on to the walls and ceilings of churches and palaces in his native Venice, many of Tiepolo’s paintings on canvas are now in art galleries all over the world.  Tiepolo was the youngest child of a Venetian shipping merchant who died a year after his birth leaving his mother to struggle to bring up her six children alone.  In 1710 he became a pupil of Gregorio Lazzarini, a successful established painter, but Tiepolo quickly developed a style of his own.  His earliest known works are depictions of the apostles, which form part of the decoration of the interior of the Church of Santa Maria dei Derelitti at Ospedaletto in Venice, painted in 1717.  Tiepolo was commissioned to produce portraits for the Doge and he started painting frescoes directly on to the walls of churches in 1717.  Read more…

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Pier Paolo Pasolini - writer and film director

Controversial figure who met violent death

The novelist, writer and film director Pier Paolo Pasolini was born on this day in 1922 in Bologna.  Pasolini's best-known work included his portrayal of Jesus Christ in The Gospel According to St. Matthew (1964), his bawdy adaptations of such literary classics as Boccaccio’s Decameron (1971) and Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales (1972), and and his brutal satire on Fascism entitled Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975).   He also wrote novels and poetry, made documentaries, directed for the theatre and was an outspoken columnist for the Milan newspaper Corriere della Sera, expressing political views that would regularly spark heated debate.  A former member of the Communist Party and openly homosexual, Pasolini died in violent circumstances in Ostia, near Rome, in November 1975, supposedly murdered by a young man he had picked up at the city’s Termini railway station, although there was some mystery around the incident and speculation over motives continues to this day.  The son of an army lieutenant, Pasolini lived in various northern Italian towns in his childhood, determined by his father’s postings. Family life was somewhat turbulent.  Read more…

Alessandro Volta – scientist

Invention sparked wave of electrical experiments

Alessandro Volta, who invented the first electric battery, died on this day in 1827 in Como.  His electric battery had provided the first source of continuous current and the volt, a unit of the electromotive force that drives current, was named in his honour in 1881.  Volta was born Alessandro Giuseppe Antonio Anastasio Volta in 1745 in Como.  He became professor of physics at the Royal School of Como in 1774. His interest in electricity led him to improve the electrophorus, a device that had been created to generate static electricity. He discovered and isolated methane gas in 1776, after finding it at Lake Maggiore and was then appointed to the chair of physics at the University of Pavia.  Volta was a friend of the scientist Luigi Galvani, a professor at Bologna University, whose experiments led him to announce in 1791 that the contact of two different metals with the muscle of a frog resulted in the generation of an electric current.  Galvani interpreted that as a new form of electricity found in living tissue, which he called animal electricity.  Volta felt that the frog merely conducted a current that flowed between the two metals, which he called metallic electricity.  Read more…

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Lucio Battisti - singer-songwriter

Musician credited with writing ‘the soundtrack of Italian life’

Lucio Battisti, who was one of the most influential figures in Italian pop and rock music in a career spanning four decades, was born on this day in 1943 in Poggio Bustone, a hillside village in the province of Rieti in Lazio, about 100km (62 miles) northeast of Rome.  A songwriter, singer and composer, his work has been described as defining popular music in Italy in the late 1960s and the 1970s in particular, although his popularity continued right up to his death, at the age of just 55, in 1998.  Some music critics and music historians have credited Battisti with writing ‘the soundtrack of our lives’ for several generations of young people, citing songs such as Emozioni (Emotions), Acqua azzurra, acqua chiara (Blue Water, Clear Water), Il mio canto libero (My Free Song) and La canzone del sole (The Song of the Sun) as his most memorable, although there were many more that made their mark.  Of Battisti’s 18 studio albums, 13 reached number one in the Italian charts, while he had at least 10 number one singles, of which his 1971 recording Pensieri e parole (Thoughts and Words) remained in top spot for 14 weeks.  Read more…

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Marietta Piccolomini – soprano

Popular star who found fame as Violetta

The operatic soprano Marietta Piccolomini, who was most famous for her performances as Violetta in Verdi’s La traviata, was born on this day in 1834 in Siena.   Her career was relatively brief, spanning just 11 years. Yet she managed to achieve unprecedented popularity, to the extent that crowds of fans would gather outside her hotel and men would volunteer to take the place of horses in pulling her carriage through the streets.  Some critics said that the adulation she enjoyed was more to do with her youthful good looks and her acting ability than her voice, who they argued was weak and limited.  Nonetheless, she was seldom short of work and she was the first Violetta to be seen by opera goers in both Paris and London.  She had a particularly enthusiastic following in England, where she undertook several tours of provincial theatres as well as appearing in the capital.  Born Maria Teresa Violante Piccolomini Clementini, she came from a noble Tuscan family. Her musical mother, a talented amateur, would sing duets with her. However, while her family were happy to arrange lessons for her with Pietro Romani, one of Italy’s first professional singing teachers, her father was reluctant to allow her to make opera singing a career.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: La storia nelle prime pagine del Corriere della Sera (1876-2013) - History on the Front Pages of the Corriere della Sera (1876-2013), edited by Angelo Varni 

Through almost 500 front pages of the largest Italian news newspaper, La storia nelle prime pagine del Corriere della Sera - written in Italian - retraces the great events of Italian and world history, from the end of the 19th century to Fascism, from the post-war period to the fall of the Berlin Wall, up to the founding moments of today's complex reality. The most important events are engraved in the memory through a wide selection of "historical" front pages. A unique record that offers an overview of Italy's past and food for thought on the new digital ways of information. 

Angelo Varni is Emeritus Professor of Contemporary History at the University of Bologna, where he teaches the History of Journalism and the History of the Risorgimento at the Faculty of Humanities. 

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Launch of Corriere della Sera

Italy’s biggest-selling daily newspaper

The first edition of Corriere della
Sera, published 149 years ago

Corriere della Sera, one of Italy’s oldest daily newspapers, began its unbroken production run on this day in 1876.

Of the country's 22 newspapers with a nationwide circulation, only Il Sole 24 Ore, which made its first appearance in 1865, and La Stampa, which launched in 1866, have a longer continuous history than Corriere della Sera.

Based in Milan, Corriere once sold more than one million copies each day. In common with newspapers across the globe, daily sales have tumbled as readers switch to online sources for news coverage. Yet, even though daily sales have slipped to below 250,000 today, it outstrips nearest rival La Repubblica by around 90,000. 

Corriere’s founding-editor was Eugenio Torelli Viollier, a Naples-born Milan journalist who envisaged a newspaper that would establish a reputation for objective analysis, with a centre-right stance in its political standpoint.

Initially, the ‘Evening Courier’, as the name translates, consisted of just four pages, each of five columns, including an editorial written by Torelli Viollier and the first instalment of a serial novel. Remarkably, the design of the newspaper’s title masthead for the first edition has never changed. Some 15,000 copies were printed, with a cover price of five cents within the city of Milan, seven outside.

The first edition had a double-date, March 5-6, indicating that it was intended as an evening paper that would remain on sale the following morning. The first copies were in the hands of news vendors in Piazza della Scala by 9pm on the evening of the 5th

Eugenio Torelli Viollier was the
newspaper's founding editor

Torelli Viollier’s coverage of the death of the King, Vittorio Emanuele I, in 1878, boosted sales from 3,000 to 5,000. A printing press capable of print runs of 12,000 copies per hour was acquired, after which Corriere began publishing two editions daily, turning a regular profit from 1886 onwards. This was increased to three editions by 1890, rolling off the presses at 4am, 3pm and 10.40pm.

By the time Torelli Viollier stepped down in 1898 the circulation had hit 100,000, although its best years were still to come under his successor, Luigi Albertini.

Albertini, a champion of liberalism and a vigorous opponent of socialism and clericalism, had worked in London as a foreign correspondent for La Stampa and made a point of studying the operating methods of The Times while based there.

After initially joining Corriere della Sera as editorial secretary under Torelli Viollier, he found himself effectively in charge in 1900, taking the role of editorial director in the same year in which Torelli Viollier succumbed to heart disease at his home in Via Paleocapa, near the Castello Sforzesco in central Milan.

Albertini invested in the paper, installing modern equipment and under his direction, Corriere della Sera became the most widely read and respected daily paper in Italy, despite his relentless criticism of Giovanni Giolotti, who was five times Italy’s prime minister between 1892 and 1921, for his willingness to make political deals with socialists.

In his time, the architect Luca Beltrami designed an impressive factory building in Via Solferino, the main street of the Brera district of central Milan, which remains its headquarters to this day.

Enzo Biagi was among 
Corriere's many famous writers

The Albertini era ended in 1925. Under his leadership, the paper’s stance had been as strongly anti-Fascist as it had been anti-socialist. Not surprisingly, after the Fascist leader, Benito Mussolini, became prime minister in 1922, the Corriere found itself on a collision course with the authorities and ultimately the paper's owners, the Crespi family, had little choice but to sack him or be closed down. 

The paper thereafter took a pro-Mussolini position and it was not until after World War Two that it returned to its traditional values with another anti-Fascist, Mario Borsa, at the helm. In order to distance itself from Mussolini’s regime, it was relaunched as Nuovo Corriere della Sera in 1946, keeping that title until 1959. In the 1960s, the Crespi family sold part of their shareholding to the Rizzoli publishing house, from which evolved the current owners, the RCS Media Group.

Since its inception, the pages of Corriere have hosted some of Italy’s greatest writers and intellectuals, including philosopher Benedetto Croce, dramatist Luigi Pirandello, the poets Massimo Bontempelli and Gabriele D’Annunzio and the Nobel Prize-winning author Eugenio Montale. The cultural pages have featured contributions from film director Pier Paolo Pasolini, novelist Alberto Moravia and historian and novelist Umberto Eco, while the roll call of giants from the journalistic world includes Dino Buzzati, Indro Montanelli, Enzo Biagi and Giovanni Spadolini.

Corriere Della Sera's headquarters is in the Via
Solferino, a street in the Brera district of Milan

Travel tip:

Its cobbled streets, historic buildings and vibrant cultural scene and nightlife make the Brera district, home of Corriere della Sera’s headquarters in Via Solferino, a big draw for visitors to Milan. Often regarded as the artistic heart of the city, Brera's roots can be traced back to the Roman era, but it was during the Renaissance that it flourished, becoming a hub for artists and intellectuals. Today, it is home to the renowned Pinacoteca di Brera art gallery, which houses an extensive collection of Italian Renaissance masterpieces, and the Brera Academy of Fine Arts. Hidden behind the Palazzo Brera is the Orto Botanico di Brera, a botanical garden established in 1774. Located nearby is the Brera Astronomical Observatory, a centre for astronomical research and education since 1762.

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The Castello Sforzesco in Milan, almost 600 years
old, is one of the city's important sights

Travel tip:

Not far from Via Paleocapa, where founding-editor Eugenio Torelli-Viollier lived, one the main sights in Milan is the impressive Sforza castle, Castello Sforzesco, built by Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan, in 1450. After Ludovico Sforza became Duke in 1494, he commissioned Leonardo da Vinci to fresco several of the rooms. The castle was built on the site of the Castello di Porta Giovia, which had been the main residence in the city of the Visconti family, from which Francesco Sforza was descended. The Viscontis ruled Milan for 170 years. Renovated and enlarged a number of times in subsequent centuries, it became one of the largest citadels in Europe and now houses several museums and art collections.  The Cairo metro station is opposite the main entrance to Castello Sforzesco, which is about a 20 minute walk from Milan’s Duomo.

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Also on this day:

1696: The birth of painter Giovanni Battista Tiepolo

1827: The death of scientist Alessandro Volta

1834: The birth of soprano Marietta Piccolomini

1922: The birth of actor, writer and film director Pier Paolo Pasolini

1943: The birth of singer-songwriter Lucio Battisti

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