13 June

Giovanni Antonio Magini - astronomer and cartographer

Scientist laboured to produce a comprehensive atlas of Italy

Giovanni Antonio Magini, who dedicated his life to producing a detailed atlas of Italy, was born on this day in 1555 in Padua.  He also devised his own planetary theory consisting of 11 rotating spheres and invented calculating devices to help him work on the geometry of the sphere.  Magini was born in Padua and went to study philosophy in Bologna, receiving his doctorate in 1579. He then dedicated himself to astronomy and in 1582 wrote his Ephemerides coelestium motuum, a major treatise on the subject, which was translated into Italian the following year.  In 1588 Magini joined in the competition for the chair of mathematics at Bologna University and was chosen over Galileo because he was older and had more moderate views. He held the position for the rest of his life.  But his greatest achievement was the preparation of Italia, or the Atlante geografico d’Italia - the Geographical Atlas of Italy - which was printed posthumously by Magini’s son in 1620.  Although Italy as a state has existed only since 1861, the name Italia, referring to the southern part of the peninsula, may go back to the ancient Greeks. It appeared on coins thought to have been produced in the 1st century BC.  Read more…

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Pope's would-be killer pardoned

Turkish gunman 'freed' but immediately detained

Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, Italy’s president, signed the order granting an official pardon to Pope John Paul II’s would-be assassin, Mehmet Ali Agca, on this day in 2000.  The Turkish gunman had spent 19 years in jail after wounding the pontiff in St Peter’s Square in Rome in May 1981 but John Paul II, who had forgiven Agca from his hospital bed and visited him in prison in 1983, had been pressing the Italian government to show clemency and allow him to return to Turkey.  However, at the same time as granting him his freedom under the Italian judicial system, Ciampi also signed Agca’s extradition papers at the request of the Turkish authorities, who required him to serve the outstanding nine years of a 10-year jail sentence after being convicted in his absence of the murder of a Turkish journalist in 1978.  He was handed over to Turkish police, who escorted him on to a military flight to Istanbul airport on Tuesday night.  At the time, a Vatican statement described the Pope as "very happy" about the pardon and said that John Paul II’s satisfaction was all the greater for the pardon being carried out during the Roman Catholic Church's Holy Year.  Read more…

Saint Anthony of Padua

Pilgrims honour the saint famous for his miracles

The feast of Saint Anthony of Padua (Sant’Antonio da Padova) is celebrated today, with thousands of people visiting the northern Italian city. Special services are held in the Basilica di Sant’Antonio before a statue of the saint is carried through the streets of Padua.  Pilgrims from all over the world visit the Basilica, to see the saint’s tomb and relics.  Anthony was born in Portugal where he became a Catholic priest and a friar of the Franciscan order. He died on 13 June, 1231 in Padova and was declared a saint by the Vatican a year after his death, which is considered a remarkably short space of time.  Anthony is one of the most loved of all the saints and his name is regularly invoked by Italians to help them recover lost items.  It is estimated that about five million pilgrims visit the Basilica every year in order to file past and touch the tomb of the Franciscan monk,who became famous for his miracles, particularly relating to lost people or things.  The magnificent basilica in Piazza del Santo is an architectural masterpiece created between the 13th and 14th centuries, later enriched with works of art by masters such as Titian, Tiepolo and the sculptor Donatello.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: A History of the World in Twelve Maps, by Jerry Brotton

Throughout history, maps have been fundamental in shaping our view of the world, and our place in it. But far from being purely scientific objects, maps of the world are unavoidably ideological and subjective, intimately bound up with the systems of power and authority of particular times and places. Mapmakers do not simply represent the world, they construct it out of the ideas of their age. In this scintillating book, Jerry Brotton examines the significance of 12 maps - from the almost mystical representations of ancient history to the satellite-derived imagery of today. He vividly recreates the environments and circumstances in which each of the maps was made, showing how each conveys a highly individual view of the world. Brotton shows how each of his maps both influenced and reflected contemporary events and how, by reading it, we can better understand the worlds that produced it.  Although the way we map our surroundings is changing, Brotton argues that maps today are no more definitive or objective than they have ever been, but that they continue to define, shape and recreate the world. Readers of A History of the World in Twelve Maps will never look at a map in quite the same way again.

Jerry Brotton is a British historian. He is Professor of Renaissance Studies at Queen Mary University of London, a television and radio presenter and a curator. He writes about literature, history, material culture, trade, and east-west relations, particularly in the 16th and 17th centuries.

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12 June

Nick Gentile - mafioso

Sicilian mobster defied code of silence by publishing memoirs

The mafioso Nicola Gentile, known in the United States as Nick, who became notorious for publishing a book of memoirs that revealed the inner workings of the American Mafia as well as secrets of the Sicilian underworld, was born on this day in 1885 in Siculiana, a small town on the south coast of the Sicily, in the province of Agrigento.  Gentile’s book, Vita di Capomafia, which he wrote in conjunction with a journalist, was published in 1963 and provided much assistance to the American authorities in their fight against organised crime.   As a result Gentile was sentenced to death by the mafia council in Sicily for having broken the code of omertà, a vow of silence to which all mafiosi are expected to adhere to protect their criminal activities.  Siculiana, in fact, was a mafia stronghold, where the code was usually enforced with particular rigour.  Yet the mobsters from the city of Catania who were tasked with carrying out the sentence declined to do so, for reasons that have not been explained. In the event, Gentile died in Siculiana in 1966 of natural causes, having spent his last years as an old, sick man who appeared to have very little money and was kept alive by the kindness of neighbours.  Read more…

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Edda “Edy” Campagnoli - model, TV star and businesswoman

Glamorous blonde who married top footballer

The model, television star and later businesswoman Edda “Edy” Campagnoli was born on this day in 1934 in Milan.  Campagnoli was a famous face in Italy in the 1950s. She became a celebrity as the glamorous assistant of popular presenter Mike Bongiorno on a prime time quiz show, and then married the AC Milan and Italy goalkeeper Lorenzo Buffon.  For a while, she and Buffon - a cousin of the grandfather of another famous Italian goalkeeper, World Cup-winner Gianluigi Buffon - were one of Italy’s most high-profile couples.  Campagnoli, blonde with blue eyes and a curvaceous figure, first attracted attention as a catwalk model in the city of her birth and it would be her looks that provided a passport to stardom. In 1954, the director Luchino Visconti decided she would be the perfect Venus in his interpretation of Gaspare Spontini’s opera La vestale, giving her the rare distinction of appearing on stage at Milan's great opera house, Teatro alla Scala, alongside the superstar soprano Maria Callas. A year later, she made her television debut in an afternoon show on the fledgling Rai network, where she was quickly spotted by the producers of Lascia o raddoppia?, a new quiz show.  Read more…

Margherita Hack – astrophysicist

TV personality made science more popular

Writer and astrophysicist Margherita Hack was born on this day in 1922 in Florence.  She studied stars by analysing the different kinds of radiation they emitted and frequently appeared on television to explain new findings in astronomy and physics.  Hack, whose father, Roberto Hack, was of Swiss origin, graduated in physics from the University of Florence in 1945. She worked at the Brera Astronomical Observatory just outside Milan and then became a professor at the University of Trieste.  She spent more than 20 years as director of the observatory in Trieste, the first woman in Italy to hold such a position. Under her leadership, the observatory became one of the foremost research centres in Italy.  Hack wrote many scientific papers and books, winning awards for her research. Her television appearances helped make science more popular with ordinary people.  Hack was also known for her strong political views and for her criticisms of the Roman Catholic Church, which she believed had an unscientific outlook.  Hack was awarded the honour of Dame Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic in 2012 and the asteroid 8558 Hack, discovered in 1995, was named after her.  Read more…

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Charles Emmanuel II - Duke of Savoy

Ruler who was notorious for massacre of Protestant minority

Charles Emmanuel II, who was Duke of Savoy for almost his whole life, died on this day in 1675 in Turin.  His rule was notorious for his persecution of the Valdesi – a Christian Protestant movement widely known as the Waldenses that originated in 12th century France, whose base was on the Franco-Italian border.  In 1655, he launched an attack on the Valdesi that turned into a massacre so brutal that it sent shockwaves around Europe and prompted the English poet, John Milton, to write the sonnet On the Late Massacre in Piedmont.  The British political leader Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of the Commonwealth, proposed to send the British Navy if the massacre and subsequent attacks were not halted, and raised funds for helping the Waldensians.  More positively, Charles Emmanuel II was responsible for improving commerce and creating wealth in the Duchy. He was a driver in developing the port of Nice and building a road through the Alps towards France.  He also reformed the army so that it did not rely on mercenaries, forming five Piedmontese regiments and reviving the cavalry, as well as introducing a standardised uniform.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Cosa Nostra: The Definitive History of the Sicilian Mafia, by John Dickie

Recognised as the 'first truly definitive English-language study of this myth-laden subject' (Sunday Times), Cosa Nostra is the compelling story of the Sicilian Mafia, the world's most famous, most secretive and most misunderstood criminal fraternity.  The Mafia has been given many names since it was founded 140 years ago: the Sect, the Brotherhood, the Honoured Society, and now Cosa Nostra. Yet as times have changed, the Mafia's subtle and bloody methods have remained the same. Now, for the first time, Cosa Nostra reconstructs the complete history of the Sicilian mafia from its origins to the present day, from the lemon groves and sulphur mines of Sicily, to the streets of Manhattan.  Described by journalist and presenter Andrew Marr as 'Monumental and gripping', Cosa Nostra is a history rich in atmosphere with the narrative pace of the best detective fiction, and hailed by critics in Italy as one of the best books to be written about the Mafia.

John Dickie is Professor of Italian Studies at University College London (UCL). He is an internationally-recognised specialist on many aspects of Italian history and culture and his books have been translated into more than 20 languages. His history of Italian food, Delizia!, was turned into a six-part series for Italian television.

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11 June

Giovanni Antonio Giay – composer

Opera composer also wrote religious music for the Savoy family

Opera and music composer Giovanni Antonio Giay was born on this day in 1690 in Turin.  A protégée of Charles Emmanuel III of Savoy, Giay - sometimes spelt Giai or Giaj -  wrote 15 operas, five symphonies and a large quantity of sacred music for the royal chapel of Turin Cathedral.  Giay’s father, Stefano Giuseppe Giay, who was a chemist, died when Giovanni Antonio was just five years old.  At the age of ten, Giovanni Antonio became the first member of his family to study music when he entered the Collegio degli Innocenti at Turin Cathedral to study under Francesco Fasoli.  Giay’s first opera, Il trionfo d’amore ossia La Fillide, was premiered at the original Teatro Carignano during the Carnival of 1715.  At the invitation of Charles Emmanuel III of Savoy, Giay became maestro di cappella at the royal chapel in Turin in 1732, succeeding Andrea Stefano Fiore.  Charles Emmanuel III liked art and music and reintroduced feasting and celebrations in Turin that had previously been abolished by his predecessors.  The composer produced a great deal of religious music for the chapel but continued to write opera as well.  Read more…

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Corrado Alvaro - writer and journalist

Novelist from Calabria won Italy's most prestigious literary prize

The award-winning writer and journalist Corrado Alvaro died on this day in 1956 at the age of 61.  Alvaro won the Premio Strega, Italy’s most prestigious literary prize, in 1951 with his novel Quasi una vita (Almost a Life).  The Premio Strega – the Strega Prize – has been awarded to such illustrious names as Alberto Moravia, Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, Elsa Morante, Primo Levi, Umberto Eco and Dacia Maraini since its inception in 1947.  Alvaro made his debut as a novelist in 1926 but for much of his life his literary career ran parallel with his work as a journalist.  He was born in San Luca, a small village in Calabria at the foot of the Aspromonte massif in the southern Apennines. His father Antonio was a primary school teacher who also set up classes for illiterate shepherds.  Corrado was sent away to Jesuit boarding schools in Rome and Umbria before graduating with a degree in literature in 1919 at the University of Milan.  He began his newspaper career writing for Il Resto di Carlino of Bologna and Milan’s Corriere della Sera, both daily newspapers, for whom he combined reporting with literary criticism.  Read more…

Antonio Cifrondi – painter

Artist who preserved images of everyday life 

Baroque artist Antonio Cifrondi was born on this day in 1655 in Clusone, just north of Bergamo, in Lombardy.  He is known for his religious works and his genre paintings of old men and women and of people at work, in which he depicts their clothing in great detail.  Some of his work is on display in the Accademia Carrara in Bergamo. A self-portrait can be seen in the church of Sant' Alessandro della Croce in Via Pignolo in Bergamo.  Cifrondi was born into a poor family in Clusone, the main town in Val Seriana to the northeast of Bergamo.  After training as a painter locally he moved to Bologna, and then to Turin and to Rome, where he stayed for about five years. He also worked briefly at the Palace of Versailles near Paris.  He came back to live in the Bergamo area in the 1680s, after which he painted many of his major works. He lived for the last years of his life in a convent near Brescia, the city where he died in 1730.  Bergamo in Lombardy is a beautiful city with an upper and lower town that are separated by impressive fortifications. The magical upper town has gems of medieval and Renaissance architecture.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Music in the Baroque, by Wendy Heller 

A study of Baroque music in its cultural, social, and intellectual contexts,  Wendy Heller's Music in the Baroque traces the production and consumption of music in the 17th and early 18th century. Going beyond a history of styles, the text explores patronage, education, religious and civic ritual, theatre, and visual culture. Heller focuses not only on the nature of music in the Baroque period, but also on the different ways in which men and women experienced music in their daily lives. Treating music as an expression of political and national identity, she examines it in the context of the era's art and literature, political and religious conflicts, and contentious issues of class and gender. The book is part of the series Western Music in Context: A Norton History, which comprises six volumes of moderate length, each written in an engaging style by a recognised expert. Authoritative and current, the series examines music in the broadest sense - as sounds notated, performed, and heard - focusing not only on composers and works, but also on broader social and intellectual currents.

Wendy Heller is Professor of Music and Director of the Program in Italian Studies at Princeton University. She is the author of Emblems of Eloquence: Opera and Women's Voices in Seventeenth-Century Venice and articles published in the Journal of the American Musicological Society, Early Music, and Music & Letters.

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10 June

NEW - Bruno Bartoletti – operatic conductor

Florentine maestro conquered hearts in Chicago

Internationally acclaimed operatic conductor Bruno Bartoletti, who conducted and served as an artistic director at Lyric Opera Chicago for more than 50 years, was born on this day in 1926 in Sesto Fiorentino in Tuscany.  Bartoletti is recognised as having shaped the excellent reputation of Lyric Opera Chicago for staging great productions of Italian opera masterpieces, as well as modern works. He also directed Teatro dell’Opera di Roma and Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, and was principal conductor at the Danish Royal Opera.  His father, Umberto, was a blacksmith who played the clarinet in a band, and as a young boy Bruno Bartoletti played the piccolo. One of his teachers recognised his musical talent, and her husband, who was the sculptor Antonio Berti, recommended him to the Cherubini conservatory, where he studied the flute and the piano.  Bartoletti went on to play in the orchestra of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and then became a pianist on the staff of Teatro Comunale in Florence.  He assisted conductors such as Artur Rodzinski, Dimitri Mitropoulos, Vittorio Gui and Tullio Serafin, who was the one who encouraged Bartoletti to study conducting.  Read more…

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Arrigo Boito – writer and composer

Death of a patriot who fought for Venice

Arrigo Boito, who wrote both the music and libretto for his opera, Mefistofele, died on this day in 1918 in Milan.  Of all the operas based on Goethe’s Faust, Boito’s Mefistofele is considered the most faithful to the play and his libretto is regarded as being of particularly high quality.  Boito was born in Padua in 1842, the son of an Italian painter of miniatures, and a Polish countess. He attended the Milan Conservatory and travelled to Paris on a scholarship.  It was there he met Giuseppe Verdi, for whom he wrote the text of the Hymn of the Nations in 1862.  He fought under the direction of Giuseppe Garibaldi in 1866 in the seven weeks of the Third Italian War of Independence, against Austria, after which Venice was ceded to Italy.  While working on Mefistofele, Boito published articles, influenced by the composer Richard Wagner, in which he vigorously attacked Italian music and musicians.  Verdi was deeply offended by his words and by 1868, when Mefistofele was produced in Milan, Boito’s opinions had provoked so much hostility there was nearly a riot.  The opera was withdrawn after two performances, but a revised version, produced in 1875, still survives.  Read more…

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Italy enters the Second World War

Mussolini sides with Germany against Britain and France

One of the darkest periods of Italian history began on this day in 1940 when the country's Fascist dictator, Benito Mussolini, declared war on Great Britain and France, ending the possibility that Italy would avoid being drawn into the Second World War.  Mussolini made the declaration from the balcony of the Palazzo Venezia in Rome, where he had his office. The balcony enabled him to address a large crowd in the Piazza Venezia and he ordered his Blackshirts to ensure that the square was full of enthusiastic supporters.  Italy had already signed a Pact of Steel with Germany but had been reluctant to enter the conflict. Mussolini had a strong navy but a relatively weak army and a lack of resources across the board.  By June 1940, however, Germany was on the point of conquering France and it was thought that Britain would soon follow. Historians believe Mussolini's decision to enter the conflict was an opportunistic attempt to win a share of French territory.  He told the Italian people that going to war was a matter of honour after his efforts to preserve peace had been rebuffed by 'treacherous' Western democracies, but many believe his motives were simply to pursue his expansionist ambitions.  Read more...

Mercurino Arborio di Gattinara – politician and cardinal

Lawyer and strategist dreamt of a united Europe ruled by the Emperor

Influential statesman and political adviser Mercurino Arborio di Gattinara was born on this day in 1465 in Gattinara in Piedmont.  Gattinara became Grand Chancellor to the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and, despite being a layman who had never been ordained as a priest, he was created a cardinal. He was one of the most important men active in politics of his time and he set out to centralise power in Germany and make the Holy Roman Empire a moral and political arbiter for all the kingdoms and principalities in Europe.  Born in his family’s home in Gattinara, he was the eldest son of Paolo Arborio di Gattinara and Felicità Ranzo, who was from an important family in Vercelli.  After his father’s death, Gattinara had to interrupt his studies for financial reasons and went to Vercelli to practise with his father’s cousin, who was a notary.  He was able to resume his law studies at the University of Turin after marrying Andreetta Avogadro and using her dowry to pay for his studies. After obtaining his doctorate, he practised law in Turin.  In 1501, he became adviser to Duchess Margherita of Habsburg, the daughter of Emperor Maximilian 1 of Hapsburg. Read more…

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Carlo Ancelotti - football manager

Five-times winner of the Champions League

Carlo Ancelotti, a former top-level player who has become one of football’s most accomplished managers, was born on this day in 1959 in Reggiolo, a small town in Emilia-Romagna.  With Real Madrid's defeat of Liverpool in the 2022 final, he became the only manager to have won the UEFA Champions League four times - twice with AC Milan and twice with Real Madrid. He has since won the trophy for a fifth time thanks to Madrid’s victory over Borussia Dortmund in the 2024 final. Ancelotti, who has managed title-winning teams in four countries, is also one of only seven to have won the European Cup or Champions League as a player and gone on to do so as a manager too.  As a boy, Ancelotti often helped his father, Giuseppe, who made and sold cheese for a living, in the fields on the family farm, which is where he claims he acquired his appreciation of hard work.  But despite the cheeses of Emilia-Romagna having international renown, especially the famous Parmigiana-Reggiano, he saw how his father struggled to make enough money to feed his family and vowed to make more of his own life.  His talent for football, allied to that work ethic, enabled him to fulfil that promise.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Divas and Scholars: Performing Italian Opera, by Philip Gossett

Divas and Scholars is a dazzling and beguiling account of how opera comes to the stage, filled with Philip Gossett’s personal experiences of triumphant—and even failed—performances and suffused with his towering and tonic passion for music. Writing as a fan, a musician, and a scholar, Gossett, the world's leading authority on the performance of Italian opera, brings colourfully to life the problems, and occasionally the scandals, that attend the production of some of our favourite operas. Gossett begins by tracing the social history of 19th-century Italian theatres in order to explain the nature of the musical scores from which performers have long worked. He then illuminates the often hidden but crucial negotiations made between opera scholars, opera conductors and performers: What does it mean to talk about performing from a critical edition? How does one determine what music to perform when multiple versions of an opera exist? What are the implications of omitting passages from an opera in a performance? In addition to vexing questions such as these, Gossett also tackles issues of ornamentation and transposition in vocal style, the matters of translation and adaptation, and even aspects of stage direction and set design.  Gossett enlivens the text with reports from his own experiences with major opera companies at venues ranging from the Metropolitan and Santa Fe operas to the Rossini Opera Festival at Pesaro.  Divas and Scholars was the winner of the 2007 Otto Kinkeldey Award from the American Musicological Society and the 2007 Deems Taylor Award from the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers.

Professor in Music and the College at the University of Chicago, Philip Gossett is the general editor of The Works of Giuseppe Verdi, published by the University of Chicago Press and Casa Ricordi, and The Works of Gioachino Rossini. In 2004 he received one of four lifetime achievement awards given by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and in 1998 the Cavaliere di Gran Croce, the highest civilian award given by the Italian government.

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