15 April

Giovanni Amendola - journalist and politician

Liberal writer died following attack by Mussolini’s thugs

Giovanni Amendola, a dedicated opponent of Fascism, was born on this day in 1882 in Naples in southern Italy.  As a critic of the right wing extremists in Italy, Amendola had to suffer a series of attacks by hired thugs. He endured a particularly brutal beating in 1925 by 15 Blackshirts armed with clubs near Montecatini Terme in Tuscany and he later died as a result of his injuries, becoming one of the earliest victims of the Fascist regime.  Amendola had obtained a degree in philosophy and contributed to the newspapers, Il Leonardo and La Voce, expressing his philosophical and ideological views. He was given the chair of theoretical philosophy at the University of Pisa but, attracted by politics, he stood for parliament and was elected to the Chamber of Deputies three times to represent Salerno.  He began contributing to Il Resto di Carlino and Corriere della Sera, urging Italy’s entry into World War I in 1915. He then fought as a volunteer, reaching the rank of captain and winning a medal for valour.  Amendola supported the Italian Liberal movement but was completely against the ideology of prime minister Giovanni Giolitti.  Read more…

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Leonardo da Vinci – painter and inventor

Artist regarded as most talented individual ever to have lived

Leonardo da Vinci, painter, draughtsman, sculptor, architect and engineer, was born on this day in 1452 near Vinci in Tuscany.  Leonardo’s genius epitomises the Renaissance ideal of possessing all-round accomplishments and his wall painting of The Last Supper and portrait of the Mona Lisa are among the most popular and influential artworks of all time.  His surviving notebooks reveal a spirit of scientific enquiry and a mechanical inventiveness that were centuries ahead of their time.  Leonardo received an elementary education but must have shown early artistic inclinations because his father apprenticed him to Andrea del Verrocchio in Florence when he was 15, in whose workshop he was trained in painting and sculpting. There are many superb pen and pencil drawings still in existence from this period, including sketches of military weapons and apparatus.  Some of Leonardo’s drawings have been widely reproduced over the centuries and are now even used on T-shirts and coins.  Leonardo moved to Milan in 1482 to work for the Duke, Ludovico Sforza, where he was listed as both a court painter and engineer. In addition to his works of art, he designed court festivals and advised on architecture and fortifications.  Read more…

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Italy’s first nuclear reactor opens

Facility based on pioneer Enrico Fermi’s historic Chicago-Pile series

The first nuclear reactor to be built on Italian soil was inaugurated on this day in 1959 at Ispra, a small town on the eastern shore of Lago Maggiore.  The facility, which preceded the first generation of nuclear power plants serving the need for clean, reliable and plentiful electricity sources for industrial and domestic use, was built purely for research purposes.  It was opened four years ahead of the country’s first commercial nuclear plant, at Latina in Lazio.  The 5 megawatt Ispra-1 research reactor, as it was titled, was modelled on the latest version of the Chicago-Pile 5 series developed by Enrico Fermi, the Rome-born nuclear physicist who created the world’s first nuclear reactor, the Chicago-Pile 1, following his discovery that if uranium neutrons were emitted into fissioning uranium, they could split other uranium atoms, setting off a chain reaction that would release enormous amounts of energy.  The Ispra-1 reactor was built by Italy’s National Nuclear Research Council. It was officially transferred to the European Community in March 1961, becoming a Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission.  Read more…

Filippo Brunelleschi – architect

Genius who designed the largest brick dome ever constructed

One of the founding fathers of the Renaissance, Filippo Brunelleschi died on this day in 1446 in Florence.  He is remembered for developing a technique for linear perspective in art and for building the dome of Florence Cathedral.  However, his achievements also included sculpture, mathematics, engineering and ship design.  Brunelleschi was born in 1377 in Florence. According to his biographer, Antonio Manetti, and the historian Giorgio Vasari, his father was Brunellesco di Lippo, a notary. Filippo’s education would have equipped him to follow in his father’s footsteps but because he was artistically inclined he was enrolled in the silk merchants guild, which also included goldsmiths and metal workers, and he became a master goldsmith in 1398.  In 1401 he entered a competition to design a new set of bronze doors for the Baptistery in Florence. His entry and that of Lorenzo Ghiberti are the only two to have survived.  In the first few years of the 15th century, Brunelleschi and his friend, Donatello, visited Rome together to study the ancient ruins. It is believed they were the first to study the physical fabric of the ruins in any detail.  Read more…

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Jacopo Riccati – mathematician

Venetian nobleman who was fascinated by Maths

Respected mathematician Jacopo Francesco Riccati, who had an equation named after him, died on this day in 1754 in Treviso.  He had devoted his life to the study of mathematical analysis, turning down many prestigious academic posts offered to him. He is chiefly remembered for the Riccati differential equation, which he spent many years studying.  Riccati was born in 1676 in Venice. His father, Conte Montino Riccati, was from a noble family of landowners and his mother was from the powerful Colonna family. His father died when Riccati was only ten years old, leaving him a large estate at Castelfranco Veneto.  Riccati was educated first at the Jesuit school for the nobility in Brescia and in 1693 went to the University of Padua to study law.  After receiving a doctorate in law in 1696 he began to study mathematical analysis.  He was invited to Russia by Peter the Great to be president of the St Petersburg Academy of Sciences, also to Vienna to be an imperial councillor, and he was offered a professorship at the University of Padua, but he declined them all, preferring to remain on his estate with his family studying on his own.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Blood and Power: The Rise and Fall of Italian Fascism, by John Foot

In the aftermath of the First World War, the seeds of fascism were sown in Italy. While the country reeled in shock, a new movement emerged from the chaos: one that preached hatred for politicians and love for the fatherland; one that promised to build a 'New Roman Empire', and make Italy a great power once again.  Wearing black shirts and wielding guns, knives and truncheons, the supporters of the Italian Fascist Party embraced a climate of violence and rampant masculinity. Led by Benito Mussolini, they would systematically destroy the organisations of the left, murdering and torturing anyone who got in their way.  In Blood and Power, historian John Foot draws on decades of research to chart the turbulent years between 1915 and 1945, and beyond. Drawing widely from accounts of people across the political spectrum - fascists, anti-fascists, communists, anarchists, victims, perpetrators and bystanders - he tells the story of Italian Fascism and its legacy, which still, disturbingly, reverberates to this day.

John Foot is an English academic historian specialising in Italy. He is the author of several books, including histories of Italian football, Italian cycling and the story of the pioneering psychiatrist, Franco Basaglia, who led a revolution in mental health care in Italy. 

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14 April

Girolamo Riario - papal military leader

Assassinated after failed attempt to unseat Medici family

Girolamo Riario, the 15th century governor of Imola and Forlì who was part of a major plot to displace the powerful Medici family as rulers of Florence, was assassinated on this day in 1488. Riario, a nephew of Pope Sixtus IV who had appointed him Captain General of the Church, was unpopular with his subjects as a result of imposing high taxes, but his murder was thought to be an attempt by the noble Orsi family of Forlì to seize control of the city. Two members of the family, Checco and Ludovico, led a group of assassins armed with swords into the government palace, where Riario was set upon.  Despite the presence of guards, Riario was stabbed and slashed repeatedly.  Eventually, his dead body was left in a local piazza, surrounded by a crowd celebrating his demise, as the Orsi brothers and their gang looted the palace.  A decade earlier, Riario, who had been appointed Lord of Imola by Sixtus IV, joined with Francesco Salviati, whose family were the Papal bankers in Florence, and members of the Pazzi family in a plot to assassinate the ruler of Florence, Lorenzo de’ Medici, and his brother, Giuliano.  Read more…

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Gasparo da Salò – violin maker

Founder of the Brescian school of stringed instrument craftsmen

One of Italy’s earliest violin makers, Gasparo da Salò, died on this day in 1609 in Brescia. He developed the art of string making to a high level and his surviving instruments are still admired and revered. Da Salò was born Gasparo Bertolotti in Salò, a resort on Lake Garda in 1542. His father and uncle were violinists and composers and his cousin, Bernardino, was a violinist at the Este court in Ferrara and at the Gonzaga court in Mantua. Bertolotti received a good musical education and was referred to as ‘a talented violone player’ in a 1604 document about the music at the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Bergamo. Bertolotti moved to Brescia on the death of his father and set up shop in an area where there were other instrument makers. He became known as Gasparo da Salò and his workshop quickly became one of the most important in Europe. for the production of every type of stringed instrument that was played at the time.  His business was so successful that he was able to acquire land and property and provide financial assistance to members of his family.  It is not known whether da Salò was the first craftsman to produce a violin in its modern form.  Read more…

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Lamberto Dalla Costa - Olympic bobsleigh champion

Fighter pilot who became first Italian to win a Gold medal

Lamberto Dalla Costa, part of the team that brought Italy its first gold medal for Olympic bobsleigh, was born on this day in 1920 in Crespano del Grappa, a small town in the Veneto. Dalla Costa was an adventurous individual with a passion for flying. He joined the Italian Air Force as a volunteer during World War Two and became a combat pilot who rose eventually to the rank of air marshall.  When Italy was chosen to host the 1956 Winter Olympics at Cortina d'Ampezzo they was a tradition of looking towards the military to provide the crews for the bobsleigh events and Dalla Costa was selected, even though he had never been involved with high-level competitive sport, after demonstrating the right level of skill and discipline.  It was an advantage when the Games came round that Dalla Costa and his colleagues were able to practise on the Cortina d'Ampezzo track, gaining familiarity with every quirk.  Partnered with another air force recruit, Major Giacomo Conti, from Palermo in Sicily, Dalla Costa registered the fastest times in all four heats and won the two-man bob event by more than a second from the second Italian crew of Eugenio Monti and Renzo Alvera.  Read more…

The Milan-Sanremo cycle race

Classic event older than Giro d’Italia

The Milan-Sanremo cycle race - one of the sport’s oldest and most prestigious single-day contests - took place for the first time on this day in 1907.  Covering a distance of 286km (177 miles), the race followed a course said to have begun at the Conca Fallata Inn, next to a navigation basin on the Naviglio Pavese canal in Milan and ended on Corso Cavallotti on the outskirts of Sanremo, a seaside town on the coast of Liguria famed for its temperate Mediterranean climate.  Cycling was growing in popularity across Europe at the time, particularly in Belgium and France. Both of those countries had established single-day long distance races in the late 19th century and it is probable that these were the inspiration when Tullo Morgagni, a Milan journalist, put forward the idea for Milan-Sanremo.  Morgagni had launched what would become the Giro di Lombardia the previous year and proposed his new project to Eugenio Costamagna, director of the Milan sports newspaper Gazzetta dello Sport.  Morgagni reasoned that Sanremo’s standing at the heart of Italy’s nascent tourist industry would give the event a particular appeal.  Read more…

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Randolfo Pacciardi – anti-Fascist and journalist

Valiant republican opposed Mussolini and served his country

Ardent anti-Fascist Randolfo Pacciardi, who was Deputy Prime Minister and then Minister of Defence for the Italian Government between 1948 and 1953, died on this day in 1991 in Rome.  Pacciardi had to live abroad in exile for many years after the Fascists outlawed all opposition parties in 1926, but he was able to return to Italy in 1944 after the liberation of Rome. He was born in 1899 in Giuncarico in the province of Grosseto in Tuscany. By the time he was 16 years old, Pacciardi had become a member of the Partito Repubblicano Italiano (PRI) the Italian Republican party.  He was a supporter of Italy’s participation in World War I and enrolled in the officers’ school of the Italian Army. He took part in the fighting and received two silver medals and a bronze medal for military valour, a British military cross and a French croix de guerre.  After receiving a law degree from the University of Siena in 1921, Pacciardi wrote for a local newspaper in the city.  In 1922 he went to live in Rome, where he became an opponent of the violent Fascist squads of the time, and he established Italia Libera, an anti-Fascist veterans’ organisation.  Read more…

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Gianni Rodari - children’s author

Writer whose books reflect the struggles of the lower classes in society

Writer and journalist Gianni Rodari, who became famous for creating Cipollino, a children’s book character, died on this day in 1980 in Rome. Regarded as the best modern writer for children in Italian, Rodari had been awarded the Hans Christian Andersen Medal for children’s literature in 1970, which gained him an international reputation. Cipollino, which means Little Onion, fought the unjust treatment of his fellow vegetable characters by the fruit royalty, such as Prince Lemon and the overly proud Tomato, in the garden kingdom. The main themes of the stories are the struggle of the underclass against the powerful, good versus evil and the importance of friendship in the face of difficulties. Rodari was born in 1920 in Omegna, a small town on Lake Orta in the province of Novara in northern Italy.  His father died when he was ten years old and Rodari and his two brothers were brought up by their mother in her native village of Gavirate near Varese.  Rodari trained to be a teacher and received his diploma when he was 17. He began to teach elementary classes in rural schools around Varese.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: The Shortest History of Italy, by Ross King

From Michelangelo to Mussolini, Nero to Meloni, Galileo to Garibaldi, here is the sparkling story of the world’s most influential peninsula.  The calendar, the university, the piano; the Vespa, the pistol and the pizzeria… It’s easy to assume that inventions like these could only come from somewhere sure of its place in the world. Yet these pages reveal a land rife with uncertainty even as its influence spread.  From the rise of the Roman Republic to the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, from the glories of Renaissance Florence to the long struggle for unification, from Europe’s first operas to the world’s first ghettos, Ross King nimbly charts the checkered course of Italian history. In the last hundred years, film, fashion and Fiat – once bigger than Volkswagen – emerge from the horrors of fascism and world war. The Shortest History of Italy is a majestic sweep across three millennia of history that not only shaped Europe but the wider world.

Ross King is the author of many bestselling and acclaimed books about Italian history and culture, including The Bookseller of Florence, Brunelleschi’s Dome and Leonardo and the Last Supper. He lives just outside Oxford.

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13 April

NEW - Catherine de’ Medici – Queen of France

Florentine girl was the mother of three French kings

Catherine de’ Medici, who married King Henry II of France and gave birth to the three subsequent Kings of France, was born on this day in 1519 in Florence.  Because of her influence over France during the period of the French-Huguenot wars, Catherine is said to have been one of the most important people in Europe during the 16th century.  She was the daughter of Lorenzo de’ Medici, Duke of Urbino, and Madeleine de La Tour d’Auvergne, but within a month of her birth, both her parents had become ill and died. Her paternal grandmother, Alfonsina Orsini cared for her initially, but after her death, Catherine was brought up by her aunt, Clarice de’ Medici. After her uncle, Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici, was elected Pope Clement VII in 1523, he hosted Catherine in stately surroundings in the Palazzo Medici Riccardi in Florence.  But in 1527, the Medici were overthrown in Florence and Catherine was taken hostage by Pope Clement VII’s enemies and housed in a series of convents.  The three-year period while she was living in the convent of The Santissima Annunziata delle Murate is believed to have been the happiest of her life. Read more…

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Antonio Meucci - inventor of the telephone

Engineer from Florence was 'true' father of communications

Antonio Meucci, the Italian engineer who was acknowledged 113 years after his death to be the true inventor of the telephone, was born on this day in 1808 in Florence.  Until Vito Fossella, a Congressman from New York, asked the House of Representatives to recognise that the credit should have gone to Meucci, it was the Scottish-born scientist Alexander Graham Bell who was always seen as the father of modern communications.  Yet Meucci’s invention was demonstrated in public 16 years before Bell took out a patent for his device. This was part of the evidence Fossella submitted to the House, which prompted a resolution in June, 2002, that the wealth and fame that Bell enjoyed were based on a falsehood.  It has even been suggested that Bell actually stole Meucci’s invention and developed it as his own while the Italian died in poverty, having been unable to afford the patent.  Meucci’s story began when he was born in the San Frediano area of Florence, which was then part of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, the first of nine children fathered by a policeman, Amatis Meucci, and his wife, Domenica.  Read more…

Giannino Marzotto - racing driver

Double Mille Miglia winner from a famous family

Giannino Marzotto, a racing driver who twice won the prestigious Mille Miglia and finished fifth at Le Mans, was born on this day in 1928 in Valdagno, a town situated in the mountains about 30km (19 miles) northwest of Vicenza.  He was the great, great grandson of Luigi Marzotto, who in 1836 opened a woollen factory that evolved into the Marzotto Group, one of Italy’s largest textile manufacturers.  Marzotto worked for the company after he retired from motor racing, at one point filling the position of managing director and later company president, before giving up those roles to develop other businesses.  He was one of five sons of Count Gaetano Marzotto, who was the major figure in the Marzotto company in the 20th century, transforming the family business into an international entity and building the Città Sociale, a town adjoining Valdagno characterised by wide, tree-lined boulevards which he built to provide a pleasant and well-appointed community for the workers at the Marzotto factory.  With this wealthy background, Giannino was able to indulge his passion for cars.   Read more…

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Roberto Calvi – banker

Mystery remains over bizarre death of bank chairman

Roberto Calvi, dubbed 'God’s Banker' by the press because of his close association with the Vatican, was born on this day in 1920 in Milan.  In 1982 his body was found hanging from scaffolding beneath Blackfriars Bridge close to London’s financial district. His death is a mystery that has never been satisfactorily solved and it has been made the subject of many books and films.  Calvi was the chairman of Banco Ambrosiano in Milan, which had direct links to Pope John Paul II through his bodyguard, Archbishop Paul Marcinkus, who was also head of the Vatican Bank, which had shares in Ambrosiano.  Calvi had been missing for nine days before his body was found by a passer-by in London. At first police treated his death as suicide but a year later a second inquest overturned this and delivered an open verdict.  In October 2002, forensic experts commissioned by an Italian court finally concluded Calvi had been murdered.  Calvi had become chairman of Ambrosiano, Italy’s largest private bank, in 1975 and had built up a vast financial empire.  But three years later the Bank of Italy issued a report claiming Ambrosiano had illegally exported several million lire.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Catherine de' Medici: A Biography, by Leonie Frieda

Orphaned in infancy, Catherine de' Medici was the sole legitimate heiress to the Medici family fortune. Married at 14 to the future Henry II of France, she was constantly humiliated by his influential mistress Diane de Poitiers. When her husband died as a result of a duelling accident in Paris, Catherine was made queen regent during the short reign of her eldest son (married to Mary Queen of Scots and like many of her children he died young). When her second son became king she was the power behind the throne.  In the bestselling Catherine de' Medici: A Biography, we learn that she nursed dynastic ambitions, but was continually drawn into political and religious intrigues between Catholics and Protestants that plagued France for much of the later part of her life. It had always been said that she was implicated in the notorious Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre, together with the king and her third son who succeeded to the throne in 1574, but was murdered. Her political influence waned, but she survived long enough to ensure the succession of her son-in-law who had married her daughter Margaret.

Leonie Frieda is also the author of The Deadly Sisterhood: A Story of Women, Power, and Intrigue in the Italian Renaissance and Francis I: The Maker of Modern France. She lives in London. Her biography of Catherine de' Medici has been translated into eight languages.

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Catherine de’ Medici – Queen of France

Florentine girl was the mother of three French kings

Cristofano dell'Altissimo's portrait of
Catherine de' Medici, in the Uffizi

Catherine de’ Medici, who married King Henry II of France and gave birth to the three subsequent Kings of France, was born on this day in 1519 in Florence.

Because of her influence over France during the period of the French-Huguenot wars, Catherine is said to have been one of the most important people in Europe during the 16th century.

She was the daughter of Lorenzo de’ Medici, Duke of Urbino, and Madeleine de La Tour d’Auvergne, but within a month of her birth, both her parents had become ill and died.

Her paternal grandmother, Alfonsina Orsini cared for her initially, but after her death, Catherine was brought up by her aunt, Clarice de’ Medici.

After her uncle, Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici, was elected Pope Clement VII in 1523, he hosted Catherine in stately surroundings in the Palazzo Medici Riccardi in Florence.

But in 1527, the Medici were overthrown in Florence and Catherine was taken hostage by Pope Clement VII’s enemies and housed in a series of convents.

The three-year period while she was living in the convent of the Santissima Annunziata delle Murate is believed to have been the happiest of her life and the time in which her interest in plants and Tuscan food was fostered. 

It was also a period of great danger for Catherine, as Clement VII had crowned Archduke Charles V of Austria as Holy Roman Emperor in return for his help taking the city.

A depiction of the marriage of Catherine de'
Medici to Henry II of France, in 1533

Charles began to lay siege to Florence and after a while some Florentines called for Catherine to be killed and for her body to be displayed on the walls of the city.

However, the city surrendered to Charles in 1530, and afterwards Clement VII summoned Catherine to Rome where he was said to have greeted her with ‘open arms and tears in his eyes’.

Clement VII then decided to find a suitable husband for Catherine and he accepted the offer from King Francis I of France, who had suggested his second son, Henry, Duke of Orleans. The pontiff regarded this as a good match for Catherine, who was not of royal birth, despite her wealth. 

The wedding took place in Marseille in 1533, when Catherine was still only 14. Three years later, after Henry’s older brother, Francis II, died, Catherine’s husband became heir to the French throne.

The pressure was on for Catherine to produce an heir, and after more than ten years of marriage she gave birth to a son, Francis. Catherine then went on to have another nine children, another two of whom were to become kings of France.

Francis became King Francis II of France and he married Mary Queen of Scots. He died in 1558 and was succeeded by his brother, Charles, who became Charles IX of France and married Elizabeth of Austria. After Charles died in 1574, he was succeeded by his brother, Henry, who became Henry III of France and married Louise of Lorraine. He reigned until he was assassinated in 1589. He had survived his mother by just eight months.

A portrait of Catherine de' Medici
wearing a widow's black cap and veil

Catherine had died in January 1589, probably of pleurisy. She was buried in Blois at first, but her remains were later interred at the Saint Denis basilica in Paris at the request of her husband’s long-time mistress, Diane de Poitiers.  But in 1789, a revolutionary mob tossed Catherine’s bones into a mass grave in Paris along with those of other former kings and queens.

During the reigns of all three of her sons, Catherine played a big part in ruling France. When Charles IX became king at just ten years old, she was appointed Governor of France and had sweeping powers. She also played a key role during the reign of her third son, Henry III. She is said to have taken a hard line against the Calvinist Protestants, known as Huguenots. She has been blamed by historians for her part in the St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre in 1572 when thousands of Huguenots were killed.

There is a long-held belief that Catherine de’ Medici had a strong influence on the cuisine of France by introducing Italian recipes, although this is disputed.

Proponents of this story claim Catherine brought in Italian chefs to the royal kitchen, who introduced the use of herbs and spices from Italy and Catherine’s favourite vegetables, which were not being served in France at the time. Some of today’s classic French recipes are said to have their origins in Tuscan cooking.

However, some experts say France already had a sophisticated cuisine of its own.

Florence's Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore,
with Brunelleschi's enormous brick-built dome

Travel tip: 

The founder of the Medici dynasty, Catherine’s ancestor, Cosimo de’ Medici, became Europe’s richest banker and a great art patron, supporting Fra Angelico, Donatello, Ghiberti, and many others. He also had a great influence on the skyline of Florence by encouraging Filippo Brunelleschi to complete his great dome for Florence’s cathedral, Santa Maria del Fiore. The largest dome of its time, it was built without scaffolding and given an inner shell to provide a platform for the timbers that support the outer shell. The architect died in 1446 before it was completed, but his dome remains to this day the largest masonry dome in the world.

The Murate monastery complex now houses bars,
shops, apartments and a restaurant 

Travel tip:

It is said that Catherine de’ Medici’s happiest time was spent living as a young girl in the 15th century convent of the Santissima Annunziata delle Murate in Florence. It was there she is said to have become interested in plants and cookery. Once a closed, religious community, the convent, between Via Ghibellina and Via Agnolo near Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence, became a men’s prison for many years, and is where Carlo Levi, the doctor and politician, who wrote Cristo e fermato a Eboli, was held during the Fascist era. It has now been converted into a restaurant and cultural hub following designs by Renzo Piano.

Also on this day:

1808: The birth of engineer and inventor Antonio Meucci

1920: The birth of banker Roberto Calvi

1928: The birth of racing driver Giannino Marzotto

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