20 April

Massimo D’Alema – prime minister

Journalist and politician first Communist to lead Italy

Massimo D’Alema, who was prime minister of Italy from 1998 to 2000, was born on this day in 1949 in Rome.  He was the first prime minister in the history of Italy, and the first leader of any of the NATO countries, to have been a Communist Party member.  After studying Philosophy at the University of Pisa, D’Alema became a journalist by profession. He joined the Italian Young Communists’ Federation in 1963, becoming its general secretary in 1975.  D’Alema became a member of the Italian Communist Party (PCI), part of which, in 1991, gave origin to the Democratic Party of the Left (PDS), and, in 1998, to the Democrats of the Left (DS).  D’Alema has also served as the chief editor of the daily newspaper, L’Unità, the official newspaper of the Communist Party.  In October 1998, D’Alema became prime minister of Italy, as the leader of the Olive Tree centre left coalition.  While his party was making the transition to becoming the Democratic Party of the Left, D’Alema stressed the importance of the party’s roots in Marxism with the aim of creating a modern, European, social-democratic party.  Read more…

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Sant’Agnese of Montepulciano

Miraculous life and death of young nun

Dominican prioress Agnese Segni, who was reputed to have performed miracles, died on this day in 1317 in Montepulciano in Tuscany.  She was canonised by Pope Benedict XIII in 1726 and her feast day is celebrated every April 20 on the anniversary of her death.  Agnese was born into the noble Segni family in Gracciano, a frazione - parish - of Montepulciano.  At the age of nine she convinced her parents to allow her to enter a Franciscan sisterhood. She had to have the permission of the pope to be accepted into this life at such a young age, which normally would not be allowed under church law.  After a few years she was one of a group of nuns sent to start a new monastery near Orvieto. When she was just 20 years old she was chosen to be abbess of the community.  She gained a reputation for performing miracles, curing people of their ailments just by her presence. She was reported to have multiplied loaves, creating many from a few on several occasions.  In 1306 she was recalled to head the monastery in Montepulciano and she started to build a church, Santa Maria Novella, to honour Mary, the mother of Jesus.  Read more…

Ivanoe Bonomi – statesman

Liberal socialist was a major figure in transition to peace in 1945

The anti-Fascist politician Ivanoe Bonomi, who served as prime minister of Italy both before and after the dictator Benito Mussolini was in power, died on this day in 1951.  He was 77 but still involved with Italian political life as the first president of the Senate in the new republic, an office he had held since 1948.  Bonomi had briefly been head of a coalition government in 1921, during which time he was a member of one of Italy’s socialist parties, but his major influence as an Italian statesman came during Italy’s transition to peace after the Second World War.  Having stepped away from politics in 1922 following Mussolini’s March on Rome, he resurfaced almost two decades later when he became a leading figure in an anti-Fascist movement in 1942.  He founded a clandestine anti-Fascist newspaper and became a member of an elite committee who would meet in the Seminario Romano, which was owned by the Vatican and therefore considered neutral territory.  Bonomi was one of a number of political figures who urged the King, Victor Emmanuel III, to abandon Italy’s alliance with Germany and remove Mussolini from office.  Read more…

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Pietro Aretino – writer

Satirist was both admired and feared by the nobility

Poet, playwright and prose writer Pietro Aretino was born on this day in 1492 in Arezzo in Tuscany.  Aretino became famous for his satirical attacks on important figures in society and grew wealthy from the gifts he received from noblemen who feared being exposed by his powerful pen.  Although he was the son of an Arezzo shoemaker, he pretended to be the natural son of a nobleman and took his name from Arretium, the Roman name for Arezzo.  He moved to Perugia while still very young and lived the life of a painter, but in 1517 when he was in his early twenties, Aretino moved on to Rome, where he secured the patronage of the rich banker, Agostino Chigi.  When Pope Leo X's pet elephant, Hanno, died, Aretino wrote a satirical pamphlet, The Last Will and Testament of the Elephant Hanno, cleverly mocking the leading political and religious figures in Rome at the time. This established his fame as a satirist. He then wrote a series of viciously satirical lampoons supporting the candidacy of Giulio de’ Medici for the papacy. Giulio duly became Pope Clement VII in 1523.  Despite being supported by the Pope and Chigi, Aretino was finally forced to leave Rome because he had written a collection of ‘lewd sonnets’. Read more…

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Book of the Day: Catholics and Communists in Twentieth-Century Italy: Between Conflict and Dialogue, by Daniela Saresella

Catholics and Communists in Twentieth-Century Italy explores the critical moments in the relationship between the Catholic world and the Italian left, providing unmatched insight into one of the most significant dynamics in political and religious history in Italy in the last 100 years. The book covers the Catholic Communist movement in Rome (1937-45), the experience of the Resistenza, the governmental collaboration between the Catholic Party (DC) and the Italian Communist Party (PCI) until 1947, and the dialogue between some of the key figures in both spheres in the tensest years of the Cold War. Writer Daniela Saresella goes on to consider the legacy that these interactions have left in Italy in the 21st century. This pioneering study is the first on the subject in the English language and is of vital significance to historians of modern Italy and the Catholic Church alike.

Daniela Saresella is Professor of Contemporary History at the University of Milan.

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19 April

NEW - Antonio Locatelli - pioneering aviator

Brave airman tried to circumnavigate the globe

Courageous pilot Antonio Locatelli, who was recognised for his valour during World War I, was born on this day in 1895 in Bergamo in Lombardy.  Locatelli was celebrated for performing solo reconnaissance flights over Zeppelin yards in Austria and for being daring enough to fly over Vienna, before he was shot down and captured and sent to a prisoner of war camp.  He tried unsuccessfully to escape twice, but was successful on his third attempt and was able to rejoin the Italian troops.  After the war, he was awarded three Gold medals and a Silver medal for military valour and made a Knight of the Military Order of Savoy.  Born into a Bergamo family, Locatelli studied at the Istituto Industriale Pietro Paleocapa in Bergamo and then became chief technician at a local company.  After World War I broke out, Locatelli joined a flying unit and was granted his pilot’s licence in 1915. He then served in writer and patriot Gabriele D’Annunzio’s air squadron.  He flew 513 sorties during the war, starting with reconnaissance missions, but then flying fighters and bombers.  In 1924, Locatelli led Italy’s attempt to achieve the first aerial circumnavigation of the globe.  Read more… 

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Lilli Gruber - groundbreaking TV journalist

Writer and broadcaster was first female to host prime time news bulletin

The journalist Lilli Gruber, who in 1987 became the first woman to be appointed anchor of a prime time news show on Italian public television, was born on this day in 1957 in Bolzano.  In a distinguished career, as well as being the face of major news programmes for the national broadcaster Rai, Gruber has reported on many major international stories as a foreign correspondent, presented shows on German television, served as a Member of the European Parliament for five years, and written many books.  Since leaving politics in 2008, she has been the host of the long-running political talk show, Otto e Mezzo, on the Rome-based independent TV channel La7.  Gruber was born Dietlinde Gruber into a German-speaking family in Bolzano, the provincial capital of South Tyrol in the Trentino-Alto Adige region of northeast Italy, which borders Austria and Switzerland.  It was her father, Alfred, an entrepreneur, who gave her the pet name Lilli, which stayed with her into adulthood.  She was educated partly in Verona, where her father built up a business making machinery for the construction industry, and in the town of Egna, near Bolzano. Read more… 

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Canaletto - Venetian painter

Brilliant artist known for beautiful views of Venice

The Venetian artist Giovanni Antonio Canal – better known as Canaletto – died on this day in 1768 in the apartment in Venice in which he had lived for most of his life.  He was 70 years old and according to art historian William George Constable he had been suffering from a fever caused by a bladder infection.  His death certificate dated April 20 indicated that he died la notte scorsa all’ore 7 circa – ‘last night at about seven o'clock’. He was buried in the nearby church of San Lio in the Castello district, not far from the Rialto bridge.  Canaletto was famous largely for the views he painted of his native city, although he also spent time in Rome and the best part of 10 years working in London.  His work was popular with English visitors to Venice, in particular. In the days before photographs, paintings were the only souvenirs that tourists could take home to remind them of the city’s beauty.  Unlike his contemporary, and sometime pupil, Francesco Guardi, whose paintings were a romanticised vision of the city, Canaletto did not feel the need to embellish what he saw.  His works, therefore, were notable for their accuracy.  Read more…

Sara Simeoni - high jumper

Held world record and won Olympic gold

The high jumper Sara Simeoni, who is regarded as one of Italy’s greatest female athletes, was born on this day in 1953 in Rivoli Veronese, a village about 20km (12 miles) northwest of Verona.  Only the second woman to clear two metres, she won the gold medal in her event at the Moscow Olympics of 1980, setting a Games record in the process.  The Moscow Games was boycotted by 66 countries in protest at the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, yet Simeoni, who competed under the Olympic flag after Italy left the issue of participation up to individual athletes, still deserved applause as the only winner in the women’s track and field programme not from an Eastern Bloc country.  She confessed later that she suffered a panic attack just before the final in the Lenin Stadium and was physically sick, but then reminded herself that she was the world record holder and eventually beat the Polish jumper Urszula Kielan with a leap of 1.97m, an Olympic record.  A great friend of the late Pietro Mennea, another 1980 Olympic champion from whom she drew inspiration, she had won the silver medal in Montreal in 1976 and did so again in Los Angeles in 1984.  Read more…

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Paolo Veronese – painter

Artist with a talent for using colour and painting people

A leading figure of the 16th century Venetian school of painting, the artist Paolo Veronese died on this day in 1588 in Venice.  Veronese left a legacy of huge, colourful, paintings full of figures, which depicted allegorical, biblical or historical subjects. Much of his work remains in Venice to this day.  A dominant figure during the Renaissance, Veronese has continued to inspire and be appreciated by many of the great artists who came after him, in particular Rubens, Watteau, Tiepolo and Renoir.  Veronese was born in 1528, taking his grandfather’s surname of Caliari, but later adopting the surname Veronese, referencing his birthplace of Verona.  He began training as an artist at the age of 14 with Antonio Badile, whose daughter, Elena, he later married. One of his early works, Temptation of St Anthony, painted in 1552 for the Cathedral in Mantua, shows the influence of Michelangelo.  In 1553 he began working for the Venetian authorities on the decoration of the Palazzo Ducale. His skilful work on the ceiling of the Hall of the Council of Ten makes the figures appear to be actually floating in space.  Read more…

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Antonio Carluccio - chef and restaurateur

TV personality and author began his career as a wine merchant

The chef, restaurateur and author Antonio Carluccio was born on this day in 1937 in Vietri-sul-Mare in Campania.  An instantly recognisable figure due to his many television appearances, Carluccio moved to London in 1975 and built up a successful chain of restaurants bearing his name.  He wrote 21 books about Italian food, as well as his autobiography, A Recipe for Life, which was published in 2012.  Although born in Vietri, a seaside town between Amalfi and Salerno famous for ceramics, Carluccio spent most of his childhood in the north, in Borgofranco d'Ivrea in Piedmont.  His father was a station master and his earliest memories are of running home from the station where his father worked to warn his mother that the last train of the day had left and that it was time to begin cooking the evening meal.  Carluccio would join his father in foraging for mushrooms and wild rocket in the mountainous countryside near their home and it was from those outings that his interest in food began to develop, yet his career would at first revolve around wine.  Having moved to Austria to study languages, he settled in Germany and between 1962 and 1975 was a wine merchant based in Hamburg.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: History of Flight: From the Flying Machine of Leonardo Da Vinci to the conquest of the space, by Riccardo Niccoli

Riccardo Niccoli's History of Flight is a book dedicated to the history of human flight, ranging from the first, uncertain attempts of the medieval period to the most advanced operations, such as the Space Shuttle, convertiplanes, the unmanned aircraft, the 21st century superfighters, and the commercial airliners to be produced by Airbus and Boeing. The book is divided into 27 chapters in chronological order, each one dedicated to a specific event or type of aircraft, including warplanes, and those used for transport, acrobatic and tourism purposes, seaplanes and helicopters. The aircraft are the leading players in the book, and descriptions are offered of their technical specifications, their development, operating history and sales successes. The section dedicated to the technological development of the aeronautics sector contains entertaining anecdotes, information and comments geared towards providing a complete historic picture of the various periods examined. The book is rich in illustrations and historic and spectacular photographs of all the most important aircraft from the history of international aviation.

Riccardo Niccoli, journalist, writer, photographer and one of the best known Italian aviation historians, has published articles and photographs in the specialist press since 1982, and is the author of a number of books.

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Antonio Locatelli - pioneering aviator

Brave airman tried to circumnavigate the globe

A Dornier Do J flying boat similar to that in which
Antonio Locatelli attempted to fly around the globe 

Courageous pilot Antonio Locatelli, who was recognised for his valour during World War I, was born on this day in 1895 in Bergamo in Lombardy.

Locatelli was celebrated for performing solo reconnaissance flights over Zeppelin yards in Austria and for being daring enough to fly over Vienna, before he was shot down and captured and sent to a prisoner of war camp. 

He tried unsuccessfully to escape twice, but was successful on his third attempt and was able to rejoin the Italian troops.

After the war, he was awarded three Gold medals and a Silver medal for military valour and made a Knight of the Military Order of Savoy.

Born into a Bergamo family, Locatelli studied at the Istituto Industriale Pietro Paleocapa in Bergamo and then became chief technician at a local company.

After World War I broke out, Locatelli joined a flying unit and was granted his pilot’s licence in 1915. He then served in writer and patriot Gabriele D’Annunzio’s air squadron.

He flew 513 sorties during the war, starting with reconnaissance missions, but then flying fighters and bombers.

Locatelli was decorated for his
valour during World War I

In 1924, Locatelli led Italy’s attempt to achieve the first aerial circumnavigation of the globe. With a crew of three, he flew a German-made flying boat, a metal-hulled Dornier Do J Wal (Whale), powered by two Rolls Royce engines.

He left Pisa on July 25 heading west, but his attempt came to an end on August 21 when heavy fog forced him to touch down in the sea 120 miles short of Greenland. The plane’s engine carriers were damaged and so the flight could not be resumed. 

Fortunately, four days earlier he had met up in Reykjavik with the American team who were attempting the same feat and this meeting was to save the lives of Locatelli and his crew.

When the Italians failed to arrive in Greenland, the Americans raised the alarm and Locatelli and his crew were picked up by a US naval ship that had been sent to search the area.

Locatelli later became a National Fascist party legislator and was elected as a deputy to parliament. In 1933 he was nominated as podestà - mayor - of Bergamo, a role in which he served for a year.  

In 1936, at the age of 41, Locatelli was killed in Lechemeti in Ethiopia during the second Italo-Ethiopian war. He was buried in the Cimitero Monumentale di Bergamo.

In Bergamo, Via Antonio Locatelli in the Città Bassa is named after him and he is also commemorated by the Antonio Locatelli Primary School in Cavernago, a comune - municipality - situated about 11km (7 miles) southeast of Bergamo. 

Bergamo's Piazza Vecchia has been hailed as
the most beautiful squares in all of Italy

Travel tip

Bergamo, where Antonio Locatelli was born, is a fascinating, historic city in Lombardy in the north of Italy, which has two distinct centres. The Città Alta (upper town) is a beautiful walled city with buildings that date back to medieval times. But there are plenty of shops, bars, and restaurants to make it comfortable and welcoming for visitors today. At the heart of the upper town is the Piazza Vecchia, which was remodelled during the Renaissance and has been hailed by architects and writers as the most beautiful square in Italy. It is surrounded by old palaces and has a 12th century bell tower that still strikes 100 times at ten pm each night to mark the ancient curfew. The elegant Città Bassa (lower town) grew up on the plain below and still has some buildings left that date back to the 15th century. But more imposing and elaborate architecture was added in the 19th and early 20th centuries and it is now a vibrant city with palaces, churches, art galleries and museums worth visiting as well as a theatre named after Bergamo-born composer Gaetano Donizetti. 

The Tre Cime - three peaks - di Lavoredo is in an 
area where Locatelli would climb as a young man

Travel tip 

Locatelli had been a keen mountaineer in his youth and had climbed the Adamello in Trentino with his brother, Carlo. Therefore, the Antonio Locatelli Hut, a refuge in the Tre Cime Natural Park in Alto Adige-South Tyrol is named after him. The Locatelli refuge can be reached by walking from the Auronzo refuge, which takes approximately one hour and twenty minutes’ or from Lake Landro, a journey of three hours. To honour Locatelli’s memory, a statue of the Virgin of Loreto, the patron saint of airmen, is housed inside the refuge. From the refuge, visitors have panoramic views of the Tre Cime di Lavaredo, three distinctive mountain peaks that look like battlements.

Also on this day:

1588: The death of painter Paolo Veronese

1798: The death of the Venetian painter Canaletto

1937: The birth of chef and restaurateur Antonio Carluccio

1953: The birth of high jumper Sara Simeoni

1957: The birth of TV journalist Lilli Gruber

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18 April

Lucrezia Borgia – notorious beauty

Pope’s daughter who inspired painters and poets

Lucrezia Borgia, the illegitimate daughter of Rodrigo Borgia - Pope Alexander VI - was born on this day in 1480 in Subiaco near Rome.  A reputedly beautiful woman, she entered into arranged marriages to important men to advance her family’s political position and rumours have abounded about the fate of her first two husbands.  Macchiavelli wrote about the Borgia family in his book, The Prince, depicting Lucrezia as some kind of femme fatale and this characterisation of her, whether just or unjust, has lasted over the years, being reproduced in many works of art, books and films.  Lucrezia was born to Vannozza dei Cattanei, one of Rodrigo Borgia’s mistresses, and had three brothers, Cesare, Giovanni and Gioffre. When she was just ten years old the first matrimonial arrangement was made on her behalf but was annulled after a few weeks in favour of a better match, which was also later called off. But after Rodrigo became Pope Alexander VI, he arranged for Lucrezia to marry Giovanni Sforza.  When the Pope needed a new, more advantageous, political alliance it is thought he may have ordered the execution of Giovanni, but Lucrezia was able to warn her husband and he fled to Rome.  Read more…

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Giuseppe Pella – prime minister

Economist did wonders for the value of the lira

Giuseppe Pella, who served as the 31st prime minister of Italy from August 1953 to January 1954, was born on this day in 1902 in Valdengo in Piedmont.  Pella is considered one of the most important politicians in Italy’s postwar history because his economic and monetarist policies led to the strong economic growth that transformed his shattered country into a global industrial power and improved the standard of living for most Italians. Born into a family of sharecroppers, after finishing elementary school Pella attended a technical school and then an accounting institute in Turin. He graduated in economy and commerce in 1924. Pella became a professor of accounting at the Sapienza University of Rome and the University of Turin and also worked as a tax advisor and auditor.  Under the Mussolini regime, Pella was forced to join the National Fascist Party to be able to continue with his profession.  He was appointed a member of the governing council of the Fascist Culture Provincial Institute of Biella, a town near his birth place of Valdengo, and in the late 1930s was appointed deputy podestá - mayor - of Biella.  Read more…

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Giuseppe Terragni - architect

Major pioneer of Italian Rationalism

The influential architect Giuseppe Terragni, who was a pioneer of the modern movement in Italy and a leading Italian Rationalist, was born in Meda, a town in Lombardy between Milan and Como, on this day in 1904.  Terragni's work tends to be associated with the Fascist regime of Benito Mussolini, although some students of his work have questioned whether he should be considered a Fascist architect.  He was a founding member of the Gruppo 7, a collective of seven Italian architects whose aim was to move Italian architecture away from neo-Classical and neo-Baroque revivalism towards Rationalism. The group produced a manifesto spelling out their aims.  Terragni’s most renowned work is the Casa del Fascio in Como, also known as the Palazzo Terragni, which was constructed between 1932 and 1936 and is considered a masterpiece of the International Style of architecture.  Other notable works include his war memorials at Como and Erba, 15km (nine miles) east of the lakeside city, the Posta Hotel in Como, a number of apartment buildings in Como and Milan and the Antonio Sant'Elia nursery school in Como.  Read more…

Ilario Bandini - racing car maker

Farmer's son who created beautiful and successful cars

Ilario Bandini, a businessman and racing driver who went on to construct some of Italy’s most beautiful racing cars, was born on this day in 1911 in Villa Rovere in Emilia-Romagna.  His cars won races in Europe and America and his designs earned the respect of the great Italian performance car maker Enzo Ferrari.  Bandini was from a farming family but was fascinated with cars and motorcycles and began to work part-time as a mechanic while he was still at school, eventually becoming an apprentice in a workshop in nearby Forlì.  At the age of 25 he took the bold decision to move to Eritrea, then an Italian colony, in northern Africa, where he repaired trucks and in time set up a transport business, which was very successful.  The venture made him enough money to open a garage in Forlì when he returned to Italy in 1939, running a repair workshop alongside a car rental and chauffeured limousine business.  At around the same time, he began to compete in motorcycle races, soon graduating from two wheels to four. In 1940, he took part in the Mille Miglia, the 1,000-mile road race from Brescia to Rome and back.  Read more…

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Ippolita Maria Sforza – noblewoman

Learned lady sacrificed happiness for a political alliance

Ippolita Maria Sforza, a cultured young noblewoman who wrote poetry, letters and documents in Latin, was born on this day in 1446 in Cremona.  She was married to Alfonso, Duke of Calabria, who later became King Alfonso II of Naples, because it was a politically advantageous alliance, but she did not live long enough to become his Queen consort.  Ippolita was the eldest daughter of Francesco I Sforza, Duke of Milan, and Bianca Maria Visconti.  She was tutored along with her six younger brothers and one younger sister by a Greek scholar who taught her philosophy and Greek.  When she was 14 years old she composed a Latin address for Pope Pius II, which became well known after it was circulated in manuscript form.  She wrote many letters, which were published in Italy in one volume in 1893. She also wrote poetry and a Latin eulogy for her father, Francesco.  Ippolita was married at the age of 19 to Alfonso, the eldest son of King Ferdinand I of Naples. The marriage created a powerful alliance between the Kingdom of Naples and the Duchy of Milan.  But her husband treated her with a lack of respect throughout their marriage.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Lucrezia Borgia: Life, Love and Death in Renaissance Italy, by Sarah Bradford

Lucrezia Borgia - an infamous murderer or simply the victim of bad press? Lucrezia Borgia's name has echoed through history as a byword for evil - a poisoner who committed incest with her natural father, Pope Alexander VI, and with her brother, Cesare Borgia. Long considered the most ruthless of Italian Renaissance noblewomen, her tarnished reputation has prevailed long since her own lifetime. In this definitive biography, a work of huge scholarship and erudition, Sarah Bradford gives a fascinating account of Lucrezia's life in all its colourful controversy. Daughter, sister, wife and mother, Lucrezia Borgia was surrounded by wealth, privilege and intrigue. But what was the truth behind her extraordinary existence - was she a monster of cruelty and deceit, or simply the pawn of her power-hungry father and brother? Lucrezia Borgia: Life, Love and Death in Renaissance Italy is the first biography of Lucrezia Borgia for over 60 years.

Sarah Bradford is an historian and biographer. Her books include Cesare Borgia (1976), Disraeli (1982), Princess Grace (1984), Sacherevell Sitwell (1993), Elizabeth: A Biography of Her Majesty the Queen (1996), and America's Queen: The Life of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (2000). She lives in London.

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