26 June

Claudio Abbado – conductor

The distinguished career of a multi award-winning musician

The internationally acclaimed orchestra conductor Claudio Abbado was born on June 26, 1933 in Milan.  Abbado was musical director at La Scala opera house from 1972 to 1980 and remained affiliated to the theatre until 1986. He was the principal conductor of the Vienna Philharmonic and the London Symphony Orchestra and was appointed director of the Vienna State Opera and the Berlin Philharmonic.  Born into a musical family, Abbado studied the piano with his father, Michelangelo, from being eight years old. His father was a professional violinist and a professor at the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory. His mother, Maria Carmela Savagnone, was a pianist and his brother, Marcello, became a concert pianist, composer, and teacher.  After the Nazis jailed his mother for harbouring a Jewish child, Abbado grew up anti-fascist. Read more… 

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San Marino is bombed by British

Allies believed the Germans were using rail facilities

The British Royal Air Force bombed the tiny Republic of San Marino on June 26, 1944 as a result of receiving incorrect information.  It was recorded at the time that 63 people were killed as a result of the bombing, which was aimed at rail facilities. The British mistakenly believed that the Germans were using the San Marino rail network to transport weapons.  San Marino had been ruled by Fascists since the 1920s but had managed to remain neutral during the war.  After the bombing, San Marino’s government declared that no military installations or equipment were located on its territory and no belligerent forces had been allowed to enter.  However, by September of the same year San Marino was briefly occupied by German forces, but they were defeated by the Allied forces in the Battle of San Marino.  Read more…

Alberto Rabagliati - singer and actor

Performer found fame through radio

The jazz singer and movie actor Alberto Rabagliati, who became a star of Italian radio in the 1930s and 40s, was born on June 26, 1906 in Milan.  His movie career reached a peak in the post-War years, when he had roles in the Humphrey Bogart-Ava Gardner hit Barefoot Contessa and in The Monte Carlo Story, starring Marlene Dietrich.  The son of parents who had moved to Milan from a village in Piedmont, Rabagliati’s career began when he won a competition in 1927 to find a Rudolph Valentino lookalike.  The prize was to be taken to Hollywood to audition, so his life changed overnight.  Later he recalled: "For someone like me, who had never been beyond Lake Como or Monza Cathedral, finding myself on board a luxury steamer with three cases full of clothes, a few rolls of dollars, grand-duchesses and countesses flirting with me was something extraordinary".  Read more…

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Paolo Maldini - football great

Milan defender's record-breaking career spanned 25 years

Paolo Maldini, the AC Milan defender who won the European Cup and Champions League more times than any other player in the modern era, was born on June 26, 1968 in Milan.  A Milan player for the whole of his 25-year professional career - plus six years as a youth player before that - Maldini won Europe's biggest club prize five times. Only Francisco Gento, a member of the all-conquering Real Madrid side of the 1950s and 60s, has more winner's medals.  Maldini also won seven Serie A championships plus one Coppa Italia and five Supercoppa Italiana titles in domestic competition, as well as five European Super Cups, two Intercontinental Cups and a World Club Cup.  Only in international football did trophies elude him, although he played in the finals of both the World Cup, in 1994, and the European Championships, in 2000. Read more… 

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Book of the Day: A Tale of Four Houses: Opera at Covent Garden, La Scala, Vienna and the Met since 1945, by Susie Gilbert and Jay Shir

A wonderful and hugely entertaining history of the four big opera houses – Milan, Vienna, the New York Met and Covent Garden – A Take of Four Houses illuminates major developments in opera both musically and in terms of stage interpretation. From the post-war reconstruction of opera houses to the influence of colourful personalities such as Karajan and Visconti, Callas and Solti, Domingo, Pavarotti, Price and Sutherland, and finally the wide accessibility and popularity of opera today and the increasing financial pressures it faces.  Along with being a valuable study of opera that is essential reading for all opera enthusiasts, Gilbert introduces enthralling personalities, and through them the scandals, the money, the media skirmishes and the drama that provide fascinating insights into the world of opera behind the scenes. 

Susie Gilbert has worked for many years as an archival researcher and editor on numerous books of 20th century history, including the official biography of Winston Churchill. Jay Shir is a musician, writer and educator. 

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25 June

Aldo Serena - footballer

Azzurri striker left field in tears after penalty miss

Aldo Serena, one of the two Italian players who most felt the agony of defeat after the Azzurri suffered the pain of losing at the semi-final stage when the football World Cup last took place on home soil, was born on June 25, 1960 in Montebelluna, in the Veneto.  The match that ended the host nation's participation in the Italia '90 tournament took place in Naples against an Argentina side that included the local hero, Diego Maradona. It was decided on penalties after finishing 1-1 over 120 minutes. Italy converted their opening three penalties, as did Argentina.  Then Roberto Donadoni’s shot was saved by the Argentina goalkeeper, Sergio Goycochea.  Up stepped Maradona, who scored, to the delight of many in the crowd who had divided loyalties.  Suddenly, everything was down to Aldo Serena. Read more… 

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Marta Abba - actress

Aspiring star who became Pirandello’s muse

Marta Abba, who as a young actress became the stimulus for the creativity of the great playwright Luigi Pirandello, was born on June 25, 1900 in Milan.  The two met in 1925 when Pirandello, whose most famous works included the plays Six Characters in Search of an Author (1921) and Henry IV (1922), asked her to see him, having read an enthusiastic appreciation of her acting talents by Marco Praga, a prominent theatre critic of the day.  Abba had made her stage debut in Milan in 1922 in Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull and was noted for the exuberance and passion of her performances. Pirandello was impressed with her and immediately hired her as first actress for his Teatro d’Arte company in Rome.  Over the next nine years until Pirandello’s death in 1936, Abba would become not only his inspiration but his confidante. Read more…

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Luigi Capello – World War I Army Commander

Popular General experienced both glory and shame

General Luigi Capello, who was held in high regard by the Allies during World War I, but was disgraced when his troops suffered a heavy defeat at the Battle of Caporetto, died on June 15, 1941 in Rome.  His reputation was ruined when he was removed from his command after a disastrous defeat by the Austrian army, which resulted in 13,000 Italians killed and up to 300,000 wounded or captured, and he never resumed his military career.  Capello went on to join the Fascists and took part in the March on Rome in 1922. His fall from grace was complete after he was accused of taking part in a failed conspiracy against Mussolini. Stripped of his military honours, he was sentenced to 30 years in prison, although he was released after serving 11.  Born in Intra on the shores of Lake Maggiore in 1859, Capello became a second lieutenant in the Italian Army in 1878. Read more… 

Elena Cornaro Piscopia – philosopher

First woman to graduate from a university

Elena Cornaro Piscopia became the first woman to receive an academic degree from a university on June 25, 1678, it is believed, in Padua.  She was awarded her degree in philosophy at a special ceremony in the Duomo in Padua in the presence of dignitaries from the University of Padua and guests from other Italian universities.  Piscopia was born in a palazzo in Venice in 1646. Her father had an important post at St Mark’s and he was entitled to accommodation in St Mark’s Square.  She was taught Latin and Greek when she was a young child and was proficient in both languages by the time she was seven. She then went on to master other languages as well as mathematics, philosophy and theology.  Her tutor wanted her to study for a degree in theology at Padua University but the Bishop of Padua refused to allow it because she was female. Read more…

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Francesco Domenico Araja - composer

Brilliant musician introduced Italian opera to Russia

Francesco Araja was the first in a long line of Italian composers to work for the Imperial Court in St Petersburg in Russia. Born on June 25, 1709 in Naples, then in the Kingdom of Sicily, Araja received a musical education in his native city and was composing operas by the age of 20.  He made history as the composer of the first Italian opera to be performed in Russia and as the composer of the first opera with a Russian text.  It is thought that Araja was probably taught music by his father Angelo Araja and his grandfather Pietro Aniello Araja, who were both musicians. He was appointed maestro di cappella at the church of Santa Maria La Nova in Naples at the age of just 14.  Araja’s early operas were staged in Naples, Florence, Rome, Milan and Venice. His opera Berenice was performed in Florence in 1730. Read more…

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Book of the Day: Veni, Vidi, Vici: When Italian Football Ruled Europe, by Dominic Hougham

A celebration of the late 1980s and ‘90s, when Italian football dominated Europe, Veni, Vidi, Vici is a must-read for anyone who experienced Italian football through Channel 4’s groundbreaking 1990s coverage.  It was an era when ten different Italian teams played in major European finals, when the greatest players strutted their stuff in Italy’s stadiums, cheered on by colourful fans. Read about: the effect the Heysel disaster had on European football; the turbulent times of Maradona at Napoli, including his and Italy’s experiences at Italia ’90; the influx of foreign talent into Italian football, including the Dutch trio at AC Milan and the three Germans at Inter; the dominance of Italian clubs in Europe; the record of English imports into Italy, with a chapter dedicated to Gascoigne’s adventure at Lazio and Channel 4 coverage; and Italy’s amazing journey through the USA ’94 World Cup, including Baggio’s ups and downs. 

Dominic Hougham is the author of Fifty Great World Cup Matches... and Why You Should Watch Them! and a full-time contributor to These Football Times magazine. He has a deep affection for the Italian lifestyle, country and calcio.

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24 June

NEW - Lorenzo Del Boca – journalist and writer

Author of Polentoni says north of Italy was betrayed by the Risorgimento

The author Lorenzo Del Boca, whose books and essays about Italian history and politics have been translated into several languages, was born on this day in 1951 in Romagnano Sesia in the province of Novara in Piedmont.  Del Boca has become known outside Italy following the publication of his book Polentoni in 2011, which puts forward his opinions about how and why the north of the country was betrayed by the unification of Italy in 1861.  But he refutes the idea that Polentoni is in any way a riposte to the book Terroni, published in 2010 by the author and journalist Pino Aprile, who is from Puglia in the south of Italy and expresses the opinion that the south was betrayed by the north as a result of the Risorgimento.  Polentoni argues that Risorgimento was a betrayal of the north as well as the south. Read more…

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Battle of Custoza

Austrians thwart Italy’s hopes of unifying the peninsula

An army of the recently unified Kingdom of Italy was driven out of Custoza in the Veneto region by Austrian troops in the Battle of Custoza on this day in 1866.  Although the Italians had twice the number of soldiers, the Austrians were victorious strategically and drove the Italians back across the Mincio river and out of the area then known as Venetia.  King Victor Emmanuel II’s younger son, Amadeo, was severely wounded in the battle but he survived his injuries and went on to reign briefly as King of Spain from 1870 to 1873.  The German Kingdom of Prussia had declared war on the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Italy seized the opportunity to join forces with Prussia, with the intention of annexing Venetia and uniting the Italian peninsula, in what became known as the Third Italian War of Independence. The Austrian Imperial army joined up with the Venetian army. Read more…

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Vittorio Storaro - cinematographer

Triple Oscar winner among best in movie history

Cinematographer Vittorio Storaro, whose work has won three Academy Awards, was born on this day in 1940 in Rome.  Storaro won Oscars for Best Cinematography for Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 Vietnam War epic Apocalypse Now, for the Warren Beatty-directed historical drama Reds in 1981, and for The Last Emperor, Bernardo Bertolucci’s story of imperial China, in 1987.  Described as someone for whom cinematography was “not just art and technique but a philosophy as well”, Storaro worked extensively with Bertolucci, for whom he shot the controversial Last Tango in Paris and the extraordinary five-hour epic drama 1900.  He filmed many stories for his cousin, Luigi Bazzoni, collaborated with Coppola on three other movies and more recently has worked with Woody Allen. Storaro inherited his love of the cinema from his father. Read more…

Piero Barone – singer

Young tenor found fame on TV talent show

Piero Barone, one of the three singers who make up the Italian opera and pop group, Il Volo, was born on this day in 1993 in Naro, a town in the province of Agrigento in Sicily.  Il Volo hit the headlines after winning the Sanremo Music Festival in 2015. They came third when they represented Italy in the Eurovision Song Contest with their hit Grande Amore later that year in Austria and have since acquired growing popularity worldwide.  In 2016, the group, together with tenor Placido Domingo, released Notte Magica – A Tribute to the Three Tenors, a live album featuring many of the songs performed by the Three Tenors (Domingo, Luciano Pavarotti and Jose Carreras) for their iconic concert held at the Baths of Caracalla in Rome on the eve of the Italia ’90 World Cup.  Piero’s father, Gaetano Barone, is a mechanic. Read more…

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Battle of Solferino

Suffering of soldiers led to the founding of the Red Cross

The Battle of Solferino - part of the Second Italian War of Independence - took place on this day in 1859 south of Lake Garda between Milan and Verona.  It was the last battle in world history where all the armies were under the personal command of their monarchs.  The French army under Napoleon III was allied with the Sardinian army commanded by Victor Emmanuel II. Together, they were victorious against the Austrian army led by Emperor Franz Joseph I.  The battle lasted more than nine hours and resulted in thousands of deaths on both sides.  Jean-Henri Dunant, a Swiss businessman, toured the battlefield afterwards and was so horrified by the suffering of the thousands of wounded and dying soldiers, he wrote a book about what he had seen and set about establishing the International Red Cross.  Read more…

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Benedetta Tagliabue - architect

Italian half of an acclaimed design partnership

The architect Benedetta Tagliabue, whose work in partnership with her late husband Enric Miralles included the iconic Scottish Parliament Building at Holyrood in Edinburgh, was born on this day in 1963 in Milan.  Tagliabue formed a close friendship with Barcelona-born Miralles when she was a student and he was teaching at Columbia University in New York.  They became business partners in 1991 and married a year later.  Tragically, Miralles died in 2000 at the age of just 45, having been diagnosed with a brain tumour, but Tagliabue has continued to run the business they created.  Tagliabue studied architecture in Switzerland and Venice, attending the Istituto di Architettura di Venezia (IUAV), which is part of the University of Venice. She fell in love with the city of canals and made it her home for several years. Read more…

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Book of the Day: Terroni: All That Has Been Done to Ensure That the Italians of the South Became "Southerners", by Pino Aprile. Translated by Ilaria Marra Rosiglioni

Terroni has not only been a bestseller, but one that has forcefully entered the historical and civil debate. In a passionate and polemical manner, Pino Aprile's book examines the effect that the unification of Italy has had on Southern Italy and analyses what some of the ramifications are today. A bestseller in Italy, the book sold more than 200,000 copies in its first year of print. More than a decade after the original book was released, Aprile has now published - in Italian so far - Nuovo Terroni, a definitive version that re-proposes the original manifesto with important additions, and with three new  parts, completely unpublished, including evidence of a massacre of genocidal proportions. Some commentators have said that the book is destined to become a fundamental document for understanding Italian history. 

Pino Aprile is a journalist and author of numerous books. He has worked in television with Sergio Zavoli on the investigative series Journey South. He lives in the Castelli Romano area, just outside Rome.

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Lorenzo Del Boca – journalist and writer

Author of Polentoni says north of Italy was betrayed by the Risorgimento

Lorenzo Del Boca had a long career working as
a journalist for the Turin-based daily La Stampa

The author Lorenzo Del Boca, whose books and essays about Italian history and politics have been translated into several languages, was born on this day in 1951 in Romagnano Sesia in the province of Novara in Piedmont.

Del Boca has become known outside Italy following the publication of his book Polentoni in 2011, which puts forward his opinions about how and why the north of the country was betrayed by the unification of Italy in 1861.

But he refutes the idea that Polentoni is in any way a riposte to the book Terroni, published in 2010 by the author and journalist Pino Aprile, who is from Puglia in the south of Italy and expresses the opinion that the south was betrayed by the north as a result of the Risorgimento. 

Del Boca points out on the back cover of Polentoni that in the 1990s he had already written two books that have been interpreted as ‘irreverent’ about the wealthy Savoy family.  

The first King of the united Italy, Victor Emmanuel II, was a descendant of the family, as were all the monarchs who succeeded him. Del Boca also says that he has been quoted extensively by Aprile as a bibliographic reference. 

Polentoni argues that Risorgimento was
a betrayal of the north as well as the south

The title of his book, Polentoni, is an offensive term sometimes used by people in southern Italy to describe northern Italians. It alludes to the northern Italian habit of eating polenta, which is a type of yellow or white ground cornmeal that can be served creamy, as a slice from a loaf of polenta, or fried.

After graduating in Philosophy from the University of Turin, Del Boca was involved for a time with local newspapers before going to work for La Stampa, the sixth most widely distributed Italian daily newspaper, which is based in Turin.

He became a professional journalist in 1980, working first as a court reporter and then as chief reporter at Stampa Sera. He went on to become a special correspondent at La Stampa, writing mainly about events connected with terrorism.

Del Boca has also specialised in writing about pseudo-history, about information that claims to be history, but is often based on theories that have been formed, which fall outside the rules and conventions followed by historians. 

His writing about the House of Savoy is characterised by a lack of reverence towards the famous family and he uses as sources articles and publications that do not accept the traditional version of the history of the Risorgimento.

He argues that while the south was ‘stripped, robbed and massacred’,  the Risorgimento was a shameful period in history in which there were no winners among ordinary Italians, with many northern people persuaded to fight and even die for the cause with a promise of better lives that was never delivered.

Other scholars and historians have criticised some of Del Boca’s ideas. but he has also received many awards for his writing.

Del Boca was president of the National Council of the Order of Journalists from 2001 to 2010, and was the first president to have been elected for a third consecutive term to be the head of the collective body that represents professional journalists in Italy.  

The Castello del Valentino is one of Turin's
historic former residences of the Savoy family

Travel tip:

Lorenzo Del Boca was born in Piedmont, which is the second largest region of Italy after Sicily. Piedmont, in the northwest of Italy, borders France, Switzerland and the Italian regions of Lombardy, Liguria, Val d’Aosta, and a small part of Emilia-Romagna. The territory was first acquired by Otto of Savoy in 1046 and its capital was established at Chambery, which is now in France. The Savoy territory became the Duchy of Savoy in 1416 and the seat of the Duchy was moved to Turin in 1563 by Duke Emanuele Filiberto. After Victor Amadeus II became King of Sardinia in 1720, Piedmont became part of the Kingdom of Sardinia and Turin grew in importance as a European capital city. Victor Emmanuel II was already the King of Sardinia-Piedmont before he was crowned King of the newly united Italy.  Much of the architecture of Turin illustrates its rich history as the home of the Savoy Kings of Italy. In the centre of the city, Piazza Castello, with the royal palace, royal library, and Palazzo Madama, which used to be where the Italian senate met, showcases some of the finest buildings in ‘royal’ Turin. Other notable cities in Piedmont - Piemonte in Italian - include Novara, Alessandria and Asti. With a population of just over 850,000, Turin is the fourth largest city in Italy, after Rome, Milan and Naples.

The Torre del Pretorio
dates back to the 1400s

Travel tip:

Romagnano Sesia, the town and municipality where Lorenzo del Boca was born, is in the province of Novara in Piedmont. It is located about 80km (50 miles) northeast of Turin and about 25km (16 miles) northwest of Novara. Visitors to Romagnano are attracted by the Church of San Silvano and Abbazia di San Silvano, which form a complex is notable for its historical and artistic significance, including a 5th-century Paleochristian sarcophagus, the 15th century tower Torre del Pretorio, the Piazza Libertà, the town’s central square surrounded by arcades, and the remains of a medieval bridge that once spanned the Sesia river before it was diverted to protect the town from its force.  Romagnano stages a Good Friday procession, known as the Sacred Representation, which began in 1729 and has evolved into a large-scale theatrical performance. It involves more than 300 actors often drawn from the community, who dress in period costumes to recreate the scenes of Jerusalem.

Also on this day:

1859: The Battle of Solferino

1866: The Battle of Custoza

1940: The birth of cinematographer Vittorio Storaro

1963: The birth of architect Benedetta Tagliabue

1993: The birth of tenor Piero Barone, a singer with Il Volo

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