15 July

NEW - Nicola Abbagnano - philosopher

Thinker who championed ‘positive existentialism’ 

The philosopher Nicola Abbagnano, best known for his advancement of what he defined as positive existentialism, was born on July 15, 1901 in Salerno in Campania.  Abbagnano, who spent much of his adult life in Turin, Milan and the Ligurian resort town of Santa Margherita Ligure, developed a philosophy that emphasised human possibility and freedom, rejecting more traditional existentialist discussions that focussed on how the struggle to create purpose in an inherently meaningless world can engender feelings of anguish and despair.  Many years on from his death in 1990, Abbagnano’s legacy of intellectual optimism continues to inspire philosophers who seek a balanced, pragmatic approach to existential questions, while his emphasis on ethical responsibility resonates in contemporary debates on human behaviour.   Read more…

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Guido Crepax - cartoonist

Erotic character Valentina captured spirit of 1960s Italy

The cartoonist Guido Crepax, whose character Valentina became a heroine of the 1960s generation in Italy and beyond, was born on July 15, 1933 in Milan.  Valentina first appeared in May 1965 as a secondary character in another cartoon, the photographer girlfriend of an art critic and amateur sleuth.  But the sinuous, sensual female depicted by Crepax, her hair cut in a glossy bob, soon acquired fans both male and female.  In an era when Italian society was beginning to experience a sense of sexual liberation for the first time, Valentina’s eroticism naturally attracted a legion of male fans. But her assertive individuality struck a chord with many modern Italian women, too, even if her readiness to shed her clothes caused outrage among others.  Soon, Valentina left behind her fictional boyfriend and starred in a series of her own adventures.  Read more…

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Frances Xavier Cabrini – the first American saint

Missionary who was directed to the US by the Pope

Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini, who founded a religious institute to provide support for impoverished Italian immigrants in the United States, was born on July 15, 1850 in Sant’Angelo Lodigiano, in Lombardy.  Frances did such good in her life she became the first naturalised citizen of the United States to be canonised in 1946.  She had been born into a family of cherry tree farmers, the youngest of 13 children. She was two months premature and remained in delicate health all her life.  After her parents died she applied for admission to the Daughters of the Sacred Heart but was told she was too frail for the life.  She became the headmistress of an orphanage in Codogno, about 30km (19 miles) from her hometown, where she drew in other women to live a religious life with her.  She took religious vows in 1877.  Read more… 

Pietro Ruggeri da Stabello – poet

Talented writer kept record of 1848 rebellions and produced verses in local dialect

Prolific writer Pietro Ruggeri da Stabello, who became famous after his death for the poetry he had written in his local dialect, was born on this day in 1797 in a hamlet near Zogno in Lombardy, a short distance from the city of Bergamo.  Ruggeri da Stabello wrote a valuable account of events that occurred in the north of Italy during revolts against the Austrian occupying army, which were later collected in a volume entitled Bergamo Revolution of the Year 1848.  He was the second son of a Bergamo couple, Santo Ruggeri, and Diana Stella Ceribelli, who had moved to the Brembana valley to escape the riots that followed the fall of the Republic of Venice in 1797.  When Pietro Ruggeri became an adult, he added the words da Stabello to his name, to honour the small village where he had grown up, which is less than one kilometre from the municipality of Zogno in Val Brembana.  Read more… 

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Fire damages St Paul Outside-the-Walls

Beautiful Basilica was faithfully rebuilt and restored

A blaze nearly destroyed the ancient Papal Basilica of Saint Paul Outside-the-Walls (Basilica Papale San Paolo Fuori Le Mura) in Rome on July 15, 1823.  A workman repairing the lead in the church roof accidentally started a fire that burnt down the Basilica, which dated back to the third century and was unique in Rome, having retained its primitive style.  St Paul Outside-the-Walls is one of four major Papal Basilicas in Rome, along with St John in the Lateran (San Giovanni in Laterano), St Peter’s (San Pietro in Vaticano) and St Mary Major (Santa Maria Maggiore).  After the fire, Pope Leo XII appealed for donations to help rebuild the church in exactly the same style.  The Basilica was reopened in 1840 and reconsecrated in 1855 in the presence of Pope Pius IX.  The redecoration was helped by contributions from all over the world.  Read more… 

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Book of the Day: The Cambridge Companion to Existentialism, edited by Steven Crowell

Existentialism exerts a continuing fascination on students of philosophy and general readers. As a philosophical phenomenon, though, it is often poorly understood, as a form of radical subjectivism that turns its back on reason and argumentation and possesses all the liabilities of philosophical idealism but without any idealistic conceptual clarity. The Cambridge Companion to Existentialism is a volume of original essays, the first to be devoted exclusively to existentialism in over 40 years. A team of distinguished commentators discuss the ideas of Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty and Beauvoir and show how their focus on existence provides a perspective on contemporary issues in moral psychology and philosophy of mind, language and history.

Steven Crowell is Joseph and Joanna Nazro Mullen Professor of Philosophy and Chair of the Philosophy Department at Rice University in Houston, Texas.  He is the author of Husserl, Heidegger, and the Space of Meaning (2001) and the editor of The Prism of the Self: Philosophical Essays in Honor of Maurice Natanson (1995).

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Nicola Abbagnano - philosopher

Thinker who championed ‘positive existentialism’ 

Nicola Abbagnano rejected the
negative tenets of existentialism

The philosopher Nicola Abbagnano, best known for his advancement of what he defined as positive existentialism, was born on this day in 1901 in Salerno in Campania.

Abbagnano, who spent much of his adult life in Turin, Milan and the Ligurian resort town of Santa Margherita Ligure, developed a philosophy that emphasised human possibility and freedom, rejecting more traditional existentialist discussions that focussed on how the struggle to create purpose in an inherently meaningless world can engender feelings of anguish and despair.

Many years on from his death in 1990, Abbagnano’s legacy of intellectual optimism continues to inspire philosophers who seek a balanced, pragmatic approach to existential questions, while his emphasis on ethical responsibility resonates in contemporary debates on human behaviour.

Abbagnano was born into a middle-class professional family in Salerno, where his father was a practising lawyer. He obtained a degree in philosophy in Naples, where his thesis became the subject of his first book Le sorgenti irrazionali del pensiero - The Irrational Sources of Thought, published in 1923. 

He subsequently taught philosophy and history at the Liceo Umberto I, in Naples, and from 1917 to 1936 he was the professor of philosophy and pedagogy in the Istituto di Magistero Suor Orsola Benincasa. 

From 1936 to 1976 he was based at the University of Turin, where he was appointed a full professor, first of the history of philosophy at the Faculty of Education, and from 1939 at the Faculty of Letters and Philosophy.

The inner courtyard of the Palazzo dell'Università
in Turin, where Abbagnano was based for 40 years

As a scholar of philosophy, Abbagnano introduced into the national discourse his knowledge of the French and German existentialist trends, of which Heidegger, Jaspers and Sartre were leading exponents.

His 1939 work, La struttura dell'esistenza - The Structure of Existence - is seen as a manifesto of the evolution of his thought, in which he proposed an alternative to the German existentialism of Heidegger and Jaspers.

He defined his philosophical vision as positive existentialism. In his work Possibilità e libertà - Possibility and Freedom - published in 1956, he clarified the meaning of his philosophy as neither pessimistic nor optimistic. He did not subscribe to the vision of man as being so hindered by uncertainty as to be prevented from achieving full potential, but accepted that fulfilment could never be certain. 

Abbagnano wrote extensively. In 1950, he was co-founder of the periodical Quaderni di sociologia - Sociology Notebooks - and in 1952 he was joint editor with the political philosopher Norberto Bobbio of the Rivista di filosofia - Philosophy Magazine. 

In 1964, he began writing for the Turin newspaper La Stampa, moving to Indro Montanelli’s Milan daily, Il Giornale, in 1972. 

Abbagnano's legacy of intellectual
optimism still inspires philosophers

Earlier, in the 1950s, he had organised a series of conventions under the banner of "New Enlightenment," bringing together academics who were interested in the main trends of the foreign philosophical thought. 

Many of his books, especially later in his career, became bestsellers, including his 1987 work La saggezza della filosofia - The Wisdom of Philosophy - and Dizionario di filosofia - Dictionary of Philosophy, published the same year.

His salary as a professor and his income from his writing enabled him to spend an increasing amount of time away from the oppressive heat of the cities on the coast of Liguria in Portofino and Santa Margherita Ligure, where he acquired a home in 1959.

He delighted in the sunsets witnessed from Portofino, which for a few minutes, depending on weather conditions, bathed the village in a subtle, blue light. He also enjoyed swimming in the sea and chatting to fishermen on his walks along the waterfront.

It was in Santa Margherita Ligure, on the beach in front of the Hotel Continental, that he met Gigliola, with whom he spent the final 18 years of his life after they married in 1972. 

Abbagnano died in 1990 in Milan, aged 89. According to his wishes, he was buried in the cemetery of Santa Margherita Ligure.

The historic part of Salerno is made
up of quaint, narrow streets

Travel tip:

Salerno, situated some 55km (34 miles) south of Naples with a population of about 133,000, is a city with a reputation as an industrial port and is often overlooked by visitors to Campania, who tend to flock to Naples, Sorrento, the Amalfi coast and the Cilento. Yet it has an attractive waterfront and a quaint old town, at the heart of which is the Duomo, originally built in the 11th century, which houses in its crypt the tomb of one of the twelve apostles of Christ, Saint Matthew the Evangelist. It is also a good base for excursions both to the Amalfi coast, just a few kilometres to the north, and the Cilento, which can be found at the southern end of the Gulf of Salerno. Hotels are also cheaper than at the more fashionable resorts. The city has a Greek and Roman heritage and was an important Lombard principality in the middle ages, when the first medical school in the world was founded there. King Victor Emmanuel III moved there in 1943, making it a provisional seat of Government for six months and it was the scene of Allied landings during the invasion of Italy in World War II.  

The 16th century Castello di Santa
Margherita sits at the sea's edge
 

Travel tip:

Santa Margherita Ligure is a seaside town nestled between Rapallo and Portofino on the Riviera di Levante, noted for its pastel-coloured buildings, palm-lined promenades and lively marina.  Once a Roman settlement called Pescino, it has been a resort town since World War Two, with pebbly but picturesque beaches. Important buildings include the Basilica di Santa Margherita d'Antiochia, a beautiful baroque church, the 17th century Villa Durazzo, and the Castello di Santa Margherita, built in the 16th-century to defend against pirates.  The former fishing village of Portofino, which has become a resort famous for its picturesque harbour and historical association with celebrity visitors, is about 5km (three miles) from Santa Margherita Ligure along a road that hugs the coastline. It began to develop as a tourist destination in the late 19th century, when British and other Northern European aristocratic tourists were enticed by its charms, despite access then being mainly by boat, or horse and cart. 

Also on this day:

1979: The birth of writer and poet Pietro Ruggeri da Stabello

1823: Fire damages Rome Basilica of Saint Paul Outside-the-Walls

1850: The birth of missionary and saint Frances Xavier Cabrini

1933: The birth of cartoonist Guido Crepax

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14 July

Natalia Ginzburg - writer and politician

Sicilian raised in Turin became one of Italy’s great postwar novelists

The writer and politician Natalia Ginzburg was born on July 14, 1916 in the Sicilian capital, Palermo.  The author of 11 novels and short story collections, as well as numerous essays, Ginzburg came to be regarded as one of Italy’s great postwar writers, alongside Primo Levi, Carlo Levi, Alberto Moravia, Cesare Pavese, Elsa Morante and Giorgio Bassani among others.  Her most famous works include Tutti i nostri ieri - All Our Yesterdays - published in 1952, Lessico famigliare  - Family Sayings -  published in 1963, and La famiglia Manzoni - The Manzoni Family - published in 1983.  She was notable for writing about family relationships, politics during and after the Fascist years and World War II, and philosophy.  Ginzburg, who was married to a prominent figure in the Italian resistance movement in World War Two, was an active anti-Fascist. Read more…

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Palmiro Togliatti – politician

Communist leader gunned down near Italian parliament

The leader of the Italian Communist Party, Palmiro Togliatti, was shot three times on July 14, 1948 near Palazzo Montecitorio in Rome.  Togliatti was seriously wounded and for several days it was not certain that he would survive, causing a political crisis in Italy.  Three months before the shooting, Togliatti had led the Communists in the first democratic election in Italy after the Second World War, which would elect the first Republican parliament.  He lost to the Christian Democrats after a confrontational campaign in which the United States played a big part, viewing Togliatti as a Cold War enemy.  On July 14, Togliatti was shot three times near the Parliament building. It was described as an assassination attempt, the perpetrator of which was named as Antonio Pallante, an anti-Communist student with mental health problems. Read more…

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Collapse of St Mark’s Campanile

Dramatic fall of instantly recognisable symbol of Venice

The bell tower (Campanile) in St Mark’s Square in Venice collapsed on July 14, 1902.  No one was killed but the Biblioteca Marciana nearby was partially damaged.  A crack had appeared in one of the walls of the bell tower a few days before and at approximately 9.45 am on Monday, 14 July, the entire structure collapsed into a heap of rubble.  Venetians regarded the event as a tragedy. The bell tower, just short of 100 metres tall, had stood for around 1,000 years and was seen as symbolic of the city.  Built on foundations of wood and mud, however, there was always the danger it would become unstable over time.  On the evening of the day of the collapse, the Venice authorities approved funding for the reconstruction of the Campanile in the same place in the piazza, to be built in the way that it looked after 16th century improvements to the ninth century design.  Read more… 

Cardinal Jules Mazarin - ruler of France

Jesuit-educated Italian served two French kings

Jules Mazarin, who was to become the de facto ruler of France for nearly 20 years, was born Giulio Raimondo Mazzarino on July 14, 1602 in Pescina, a small town in the province of L’Aquila in the Abruzzo region.  He served as the chief minister to the Kings of France, Louis XIII and Louis XIV, from 1642 until his death in 1661. Mazzarino’s parents were residents of Rome but would spend the summers in Pescina to escape the heat.  His father, Pietro Mazzarino, had moved to Rome from Sicily to become a chamberlain in the family of Filippo I Colonna, the Grand Constable of Naples. His mother was Filippo I Colonna’s goddaughter.  Influenced by the Colonna family, the couple sent Mazzarino to the Jesuit College in Rome when he was seven. He excelled in his studies and gave a public lecture at the age of 16, explaining Halley’s comet, which had appeared that year. Read more… 

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Camillus de Lellis - saint

Reformed gambler who became devoted to caring for sick

Camillo de Lellis, a gambler and streetfighter who reformed his life and eventually set up a religious order to tend the wounds of soldiers on the battlefield, died on July 14, 1614 in Rome.  He was made Saint Camillus de Lellis by Pope Benedict XIV in 1746. Nowadays he is recognised as the patron saint of the sick, hospitals, nurses and physicians. Sometimes his assistance is also invoked by individuals with gambling problems.  The Order of Clerks Regular, Ministers of the Infirm (M.I), better known as the Camillians, is seen as the original Red Cross on account of an incident during the Battle of Canizza in 1601, when a tent containing all of the Camillians’ equipment and supplies was destroyed in a fire.  Among the ashes, the red cross from the back of a religious habit belonging to one of the Camillians was found to have survived. Read more… 

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Book of the Day: All Our Yesterdays, by Natalia Ginzburg. Introduction by Sally Rooney

Anna, a 16-year-old schoolgirl in a small town in northern Italy, finds herself pregnant after a brief romance. To save her reputation, she marries an eccentric older family friend, Cenzo Rena, and they move to his village in the south. Their relationship is touched by tragedy and grace as the events of their life in the countryside run parallel to the war and the encroaching threat of fascism – and in their wake, a society dealing with anxiety and grief.  At the heart of All Our Yesterdays is a concern with experiences that both deepen and deaden existence: adultery and air raids, neighbourhood quarrels and bombings. With her signature clear-eyed wit, Ginzburg asks how we can act with integrity when faced with catastrophe, and how we can love well.

Natalia Ginzburg’s work included novels, short stories, and essays that never shied away from the traumas of history, whether writing about the Turin of her childhood, the Abruzzi countryside, or contemporary Rome. Most of her works were translated into English and published in the United Kingdom and United States. Sally Rooney is a best-selling Irish novelist.

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13 July

Vannozza dei Cattanei - popes’ mistress

Mother of Lucrezia and Cesare Borgia was figure of influence

Vannozza dei Cattanei, who was for many years the chief mistress of Cardinal Rodrigo de Borgia - later Pope Alexander VI - was born on July 13, 1442 in Mantua.  Herself from the aristocratic Candia family, Vannozza - baptised as Giovanna de Candia - grew up to be a beautiful woman but also a successful businesswoman, acquiring a number of osterie - inns - after she moved to Rome.  In 15th century Italy, it was not unusual for cardinals and popes to have mistresses, despite Holy Orders coming with a vow of celibacy.  Before her relationship with Rodrigo de Borgia, Vannozza allegedly was mistress to Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, the future Pope Julius II and a rival to Borgia in the 1492 papal election that he won.  Rodrigo made no attempt to hide his sexual dalliances, acquiring the nickname Papa Cattivo - the naughty pope. Read more…

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Jarno Trulli - racing driver and winemaker

Ex-Formula One star still winning prizes

The racing driver-turned-winemaker Jarno Trulli was born on July 13, 1974 in Pescara on the Adriatic coast.  Trulli competed in Formula One from 1997 until 2011, competing in more than 250 Grands Prix.  He enjoyed his most successful season in 2004, when he represented the Mild Seven Renault team and finished sixth in the drivers’ championship.  He retired from racing in 2014-15 to focus on his winemaking business, which he had established while still competing and which now produces more than 1.2 million bottles every year.  Trulli’s Podere Castorani vineyard, situated near the village of Alanno, some 35km (22 miles) inland of Pescara, focuses largely on wines made from Abruzzo’s renowned Montepulciano grapes.  Although he was familiar with vineyards as a boy - his grandfather was a winemaker - Trulli’s parents were motorsports fans. Read more…

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Tommaso Buscetta - Mafia ‘pentito’

Sicilian gangster’s testimony put hundreds behind bars

The Sicilian mobster Tommaso Buscetta, who was the first major Mafia figure to break the code of omertà and pass details of organised criminal activity to the authorities, was born on July 13, 1928 in Palermo.  His evidence to the celebrated anti-Mafia judge Giovanni Falcone paved the way for the so-called Maxi Trial, a process lasting six years that led to the conviction and jailing of 350 mafiosi.  Buscetta’s testimony in the Pizza Connection Trial in New York State at around the same time in the mid-1980s led to the conviction of several hundred more mobsters both in Italy and the United States, including the powerful Sicilian Mafia boss Gaetano Badalamenti.  Arguably the most shocking information he passed on to the authorities concerned Italy’s three-times former prime minister, the late Giulio Andreotti, whose links with the Cosa Nostra he exposed. Read more…

Giulio d’Este of Ferrara

Plots and prison ruin life of handsome son of Duke

Giulio d’Este, who spent more than half of his life in prison for taking part in a failed conspiracy against his half-brother, the Duke of Ferrara, was born on July 13, 1478 in Ferrara.  He was the illegitimate son of Ercole I d’Este, an earlier Duke of Ferrara, born as a result of an affair the Duke had with Isabella Arduin, a lady in waiting to his wife.  Giulio was often in conflict with his half-brothers, Alfonso and Ippolito, which led to him eventually playing his part in a plot to assassinate them.  He had grown up in the court of Ferrara and later lived in a palace on the Via degli Angeli in Ferrara.  The first major conflict between Giulio and Ippolito arose over a musician, Don Rainaldo of Sassuolo. Rainaldo was in the service of Giulio, but Ippolito, who had by then become a Cardinal, wanted him for his chapel and so in 1504 he abducted Rainaldo. Read more…

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The founding of the Carabinieri

Italy’s stylish ‘First Force’

The Carabinieri Corps was created on July 13, 1814 in Italy by a resolution passed by Victor Emmanuel I of Savoy.  He established an army of mounted and foot soldiers to provide a police force, to be called Royal Carabinieri (Carabinieri Reali). The soldiers were rigorously selected ‘for their distinguished good conduct and judiciousness.’  Their task was defined as ‘to contribute to the necessary happiness of the State, which cannot be separated from protection and defence of all good subjects.’  Their functions were specified in the royal licence issued at the time, which underlined the importance of the personal skills required by the soldiers selected. It also affirmed their dual military and civil roles.  The sense of duty and high level of conduct displayed by the Carabinieri went on to win the respect of the Italian people.  Read more… 

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Book of the Day: The Borgias, by Christopher Hibbert

The name Borgia is synonymous with the corruption, nepotism, and greed that were rife in Renaissance Italy. The powerful, voracious Rodrigo Borgia, better known to history as Pope Alexander VI, was the central figure of the dynasty. Two of his seven papal offspring also rose to power and fame - Lucrezia Borgia, his daughter, whose husband was famously murdered by her brother, and that brother, Cesare, who served as the model for Niccolò Machiavelli's The Prince. Notorious for seizing power, wealth, land, and titles through bribery, marriage, and murder, the dynasty's dramatic rise from its Spanish roots to its occupation of the highest position in Renaissance society forms a gripping tale. Warlords, Popes, Poisoners - The Borgias is the true story of the first family of the Italian Renaissance.

Christopher Hibbert was an English writer, historian and biographer, the most widely-read popular historian of his time and one of the most prolific. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and the author of many books, including The Story of England, Disraeli, Edward VII, George IV, The Rise and Fall of the House of Medici, and Cavaliers and Roundheads. The Borgias was his final book before his death in 2008.

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