Sant’Eustachio – Roman saint

Christian convert martyred by Hadrian celebrated across world

 Tommaso Cagnola's Vision of Saint Eustace in the
Oratorio di Santa Maria in Garbagna Novarese, Piedmont

The feast day of Saint Eustace, Sant’Eustachio as he is known in Italian, is celebrated on this day every year in Rome, as well as throughout Italy, and elsewhere in the world.

Eustace is revered as a Christian martyr because he was killed by the Emperor Hadrian in AD 118 for refusing to sacrifice to pagan gods. He was thrown to the lions initially but the animals are said to have refused to eat him, so Hadrian ordered another unpleasant death for him and his family, using a brazen bull, a lifesize model of a bull cast in bronze, which was a particularly cruel torture and execution device of the day. 

After Eustace and his family’s deaths, their bodies were secretly recovered and buried by Christians in Rome.

A church and minor basilica in Italy’s capital city is named after Eustace in Rione Sant’Eustachio, an area between Piazza Navona and the Pantheon.

Sant’Eustachio is also honoured on this day in Tocco da Casauria in the province of Pescara in the Abruzzo region, where the 12th century church is dedicated to him, and on an island in the Caribbean belonging to the Netherlands, which is named Sint’Eustatius after the saint. There are also two churches in India dedicated to him and a church bearing his name in County Kildare in Ireland.

Eustace was a pagan Roman general who converted to Christianity after he had a vision of the cross while out hunting. As a result, he lost all his wealth, was separated from his wife and sons and went into exile in Egypt.

But he was called back to lead the Roman army by a subsequent emperor, Trajan, and he was happily reunited with his family and restored to high social standing.

Under the regime of Hadrian, who came afterwards, however, Eustace and his family were martyred for refusing to adhere to paganism.

The Chiesa di Sant'Eustachio in Tocco da Casauria,
in the shadow of the Maiella massif in Abruzzo

Many versions of the legend of Saint Eustace were written in verse and prose in medieval times in France and in Italy. In one French version, Eustace became a Christian after he is awestruck by a deer when he was out hunting. When the deer turned to look at him, Eustace saw the deer had a cross between its antlers

In Italy, a church dedicated to Saint Eustace in Rome is mentioned in a letter by Pope Gregory II who was pontiff from 731 to 741.

An early depiction of Eustace in Europe was carved on a Romanesque capital at an abbey in Burgundy, and Philip II of France rededicated a church to Saint Eustace in the 12th century.

Because Eustace is reputed to have converted to Christianity while out stag hunting, there are depictions of him kneeling before a stag in a wall painting in Canterbury Cathedral, and in stained glass windows at the Cathedral of Chartres in France.

Eustace became known as a patron saint of hunters and firefighters, and also of anyone facing adversity. He is the patron saint of hunters in Bavaria and Austria, and one of the patron saints of Madrid in Spain.

His feast day of September 20 is remembered by both the Roman Catholic church and the Eastern Orthodox Church. It was removed from the Roman calendar in 1969 because of the lack of definite information about the saint, but it is still observed around the world by Roman Catholics who follow the pre-1970 Roman Calendar.

The Basilica Sant'Eustachio
dates back to the 8th century

Travel tip:

The Basilica of Saint Eustace, (Basilica Sant’Eustachio) is in Via di Sant’Eustachio to the west of the Pantheon. It had been founded by the end of the eighth century as it was mentioned in documents as being a centre for helping the poor and the sick during the reign of Pope Gregory II, which ended in 731. The church was restored and had a new campanile added by Celestine III, who was Pope between 1191 and 1198, and who ordered the relics of Eustace and his family to be placed in the church. The church was almost completely rebuilt in Roman baroque style during the 17th and 18th centuries, with only the campanile from the old structure remaining. On top of the pediment on the façade of the church there is a deer head with a cross between the antlers, which is a reference to one of the legends about how Saint Eustace became a Christian. 

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Caravaggio's painting, The Calling of Saint Matthew,
can be seen in the church of San Luigi dei Francesi

Travel tip:

Sant’Eustachio gives his name to the eighth Rione of Rome, whose coat of arms also depicts the head of a stag with a cross between the antlers. The Rione Sant'Eustachio lies between the Pantheon and Piazza Navona and extends to the Largo di Torre Argentina archaeological site. As well as the Basilica of Sant’Eustachio, the Church of San Luigi dei Francesi is within the Rione, its Contarelli Chapel containing a cycle of paintings by the Baroque master Caravaggio, painted in 1599-1600, about the life of Saint Matthew. This includes the three world-renowned canvases of The Calling of Saint Matthew (on the left wall), The Inspiration of Saint Matthew (above the altar), and The Martyrdom of Saint Matthew (on the right wall). The district is also home to one of Rome’s most famous and popular coffee houses, Sant' Eustachio Il Caffè, in Piazza Sant’Eustachio, opened in 1938 and said to be the oldest coffee roastery in central Rome. It occupies the premises that formerly housed another café, established in 1800 under the name Caffè e Latte. 

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More reading:

The Caravaggio altarpiece on display in a church in Siracusa, Sicily

Nero’s mass slaughter of Christians in Rome

Trajan, the military expansionist with progressive social policies

Also on this day:

1378: Election of Robert of Geneva’s election as Pope Clement VII sparks split in Catholic Church

1870: Capture of Rome completes unification

1934: The birth of Oscar-winning actress Sophia Loren

1975: The birth of actress and director Asia Argento

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19 September

Giuseppe Saragat – fifth President of Italy

Socialist politician opposed Fascism and Communism

Giuseppe Saragat, who was President of the Italian Republic from 1964 to 1971, was born on this day in 1898 in Turin.  As a Socialist, he was exiled from Italy by the Fascists in 1926.  When he returned to Italy in 1943 to join the partisans, he was arrested and imprisoned by the Nazi forces occupying Rome, but managed to escape and resume clandestine activity. Saragat was born in Turin to Sardinian parents and graduated from the University of Turin in economics and commerce. He joined the Socialist party in 1922.  During his years in exile he did various jobs in Austria and France.  After returning to Italy, he was minister without portfolio in the first post-liberation cabinet of Ivanoe Bonomi in 1944.  He was sent as ambassador to Paris and was then elected president of the Constitutional Assembly that drafted postwar Italy’s new constitution.  Read more…

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Italo Calvino – writer

One of 20th century Italy's most important authors

Novelist and journalist Italo Calvino died on this day in 1985 in Siena in Tuscany.  Calvino was regarded as one of the most important Italian writers of fiction of the 20th century.  His best known works are the Our Ancestors trilogy, written in the 1950s, the Cosmicomics collection of short stories, published in 1965, and the novels, Invisible Cities, published in 1972 and If On A Winter’s Night A Traveller, published in 1979.  Both of Calvino’s parents were Italian, but he was born in Santiago de Las Vegas, a suburb of Havana in Cuba, in 1923, where his father, Mario, an agronomist and botanist, was conducting scientific experiments. Calvino’s mother, Eva, was also a botanist and a university professor. It is believed she gave Calvino the first name of Italo to remind him of his heritage.  Calvino and his parents left Cuba for Italy in 1925 and settled permanently in Sanremo. Read more… 

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Mariangela Melato - actress

Versatile star excelled on stage and screen

Mariangela Melato, who won acclaim for her work with the brilliant director Lina Wertmüller, played a camp villain in the comic book send-up Flash Gordon, and later excelled as a classical stage actress, was born on this day in 1941 in Milan.  She enjoyed her peak years on screen in the 1970s, most notably in Wertmuller’s The Seduction of Mimi, Love and Anarchy and Swept Away.  From the mid-80s onwards, Melato was based at the Teatro Stabile in Genoa, where she played many of the great classical parts in works by authors such as Pirandello, Euripides and Shakespeare.  She made her mark in television, notably winning praise for her portrayal of Mrs Danvers in an Italian adaptation of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca in 2008.  Melato’s father emigrated to Italy from Nazi Germany, changed his name from Honing to Melato and became a traffic policeman in Trieste. Read more…

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Umberto Bossi - politician

Fiery leader of separatist Lega Nord

Controversial politician Umberto Bossi was born on this day in 1941 in the town of Cassano Magnago in Lombardy.  Until 2012, Bossi was leader of Lega Nord (Northern League), a political party whose goal was to achieve autonomy for northern Italy and establish a new independent state, to be called Padania.  With his distinctive, gravelly voice and penchant for fiery, sometimes provocative rhetoric, Bossi won a place in the Senate in 1987 representing his original party, Lega Lombarda. He was dismissed as an eccentric by some in the political mainstream but under his charismatic leadership Lega Nord became a force almost overnight.  Launched as Alleanza Nord in 1989, bringing together a number of regional parties including Bossi’s own Lega Lombarda, it was renamed Lega Nord in 1991 and fought the 1992 general election with stunning results.  Read more…

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Festival of San Gennaro

Worldwide celebrations for patron saint of Naples

Local worshippers, civic dignitaries and visitors meet together in the Duomo in Naples every year on this day to remember the martyrdom of the patron saint of the city, San Gennaro.  Each year a service is held to enable the congregation to witness the dried blood of the saint, which is kept in a glass phial, miraculously turn to liquid.  The practice of gathering blood to be kept as a relic was common at the time of the decapitation of San Gennaro in 305.  The ritual of praying for the miracle of liquefaction of the blood on the anniversary of his death dates back to the 13th century.  Gennaro is said to have been the Bishop of Benevento and was martyred during the Great Persecution led by the Roman Emperor Diocletian for trying to protect other Christians.  His decapitation is believed to have taken place in Pozzuoli but his remains were transferred to the Duomo in Naples in the 15th century.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: War and Social Change in Modern Europe: The Great Transformation Revisited, by Sandra Halperin

Sandra Halperin traces the persistence of traditional class structures during the development of industrial capitalism in Europe, and the way in which these structures shaped states and state behaviour and generated conflict. She documents European conflicts between 1789 and 1914, including small and medium scale conflicts often ignored by researchers and links these conflicts to structures characteristic of industrial capitalist development in Europe before 1945. War and Social Change in Modern Europe revisits the historical terrain of Karl Polanyi's The Great Transformation (1944), however, it argues that Polanyi's analysis is, in important ways, inaccurate and misleading. Ultimately, the book shows how and why the conflicts both culminated in the world wars and brought about a 'great transformation' in Europe. Its account of this period challenges not only Polanyi's analysis, but a variety of influential perspectives on nationalism, development, conflict, international systems change, and globalisation.

Sandra Halperin is Professor of International Relations and co-director of the Centre for Global and Transnational Politics in the Department of Politics and International Relations at Royal Holloway, University of London.

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18 September

Rossano Brazzi - Hollywood star

Actor quit as a lawyer for career on the big screen

The movie actor Rossano Brazzi, whose credits include The Barefoot Contessa, Three Coins in the Fountain and South Pacific, was born on this day in 1916 in Bologna.  Brazzi gave up a promising career as a lawyer in order to act and went on to appear in more than 200 films, more often than not cast as a handsome heartbreaker or romantic aristocrat.  He was at his peak in the 50s and 60s but continued to accept parts until the late 80s. His last major role was as Father DeCarlo in Omen III: The Final Conflict in 1981.  Brazzi's family moved to Florence when he was aged four. His father Adelmo, a shoemaker, opened a leather factory in which Rossano, his brother, Oscar, and his sister, Franca, would all eventually work.  Adelmo had ambitions for Rossano, however, helping him win a place at the University of Florence, where he obtained a law degree. Read more…

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Alberto Franchetti - opera composer

Caruso sang his arias on first commercial record in 1902

The opera composer Alberto Franchetti, some of whose works were performed by the great tenor Enrico Caruso for his first commercial recording, was born on this day in 1860 in Turin.  Caruso had been taken with Franchetti’s opera, Germania, when he sang the male lead role in the opera’s premiere at Teatro alla Scala in Milan in March 1902.  A month later, Caruso famously made his first recording on a phonograph in a Milan hotel room and chose a number of arias from Germania and critics noted that he sang the aria Ah vieni qui… No, non chiuder gli occhi vaghi with a particular sweetness of voice.  A friend and rival of Giacomo Puccini, Franchetti had a style said to have been influenced by the German composers Wagner and Meyerbeer. He was sometimes described as the "Meyerbeer of modern Italy."  Read more…

Domitian – Roman emperor

Efficient tyrant rebuilt parts of Rome

The Emperor Domitian, who kept the Roman upper classes under control by subjecting them to a 15-year reign of terror, died on this day in 96 AD in Rome.  He has been described as ‘a ruthless, but efficient, autocrat,’ who clashed with the Senate and drastically reduced their powers. But he strengthened the Roman economy and started a massive building programme to restore the city of Rome, which had been damaged by successive wars and fires.  The last member of the Flavian dynasty, Domitian was the son of Vespasian, and the brother of Titus, who were his two predecessors as Emperor.  He played only a minor role during their reigns, but after the death of his brother, Titus, who had no children, Domitian was declared Emperor by the Praetorian Guard.  Domitian revalued the Roman coinage and strengthened border defences. Read more…

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Francesca Caccini – singer and composer

Court musician composed oldest surviving opera by a woman

Prolific composer and talented singer Francesca Caccini was born on this day in 1587 in Florence.  Sometimes referred to by the nickname La Cecchina, she composed what is widely considered to be the oldest surviving opera by a woman composer, La Liberazione di Ruggiero, which was adapted from the epic poem, Orlando Furioso by Ludovico Ariosto.  Caccini was the daughter of the composer and musician, Giulio Caccini, and she received her early musical training from him. Like her father, she regularly sang at the Medici court.  She was part of an ensemble of singers referred to as le donne di Giulio Romano, which included her sister, Settimia, and other unnamed pupils.  After her sister married and moved to Mantua, the ensemble broke up, but Caccini continued to serve the court as a teacher, singer and composer. Read more…

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The Italian Cinema Book,  edited by Peter Bondanella

The Italian Cinema Book is an essential guide to the most important historical, aesthetic and cultural aspects of Italian cinema, from 1895 to the present day. With contributions from 39 leading international scholars, the book is structured around six chronologically organised sections: The Silent Era 1895-1922); The birth of the Talkies and the Fascist Era (1922-45); Postwar cinematic culture (1945-59); The golden age of Italian cinema (1960-80); An age of crisis, transition and consolidation (1891-present); and  New directions in critical approaches to Italian cinema. Acutely aware of the contemporary 'rethinking' of Italian cinema history, Peter Bondanella has brought together a diverse range of essays which represent the cutting edge of Italian film theory and criticism. This provocative collection will provide the film student, scholar or enthusiast with a comprehensive understanding of the major developments in what might be called 20th-century Italy's greatest and most original art form. 

Peter Bondanella was the author of a number of groundbreaking books such as: Hollywood Italians, The Cinema of Federico Fellini, and The Films of Roberto Rossellini. In 2009, he was elected to the European Academy of Sciences and the Arts for his contributions to the history of the Italian cinema and his translations or editions of Italian literary classics

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17 September

Ranuccio II Farnese – Duke of Parma

Feuding with the Popes led to the destruction of a city

Ranuccio II Farnese, who angered Innocent X so much that the Pope had part of his territory razed to the ground, was born on this day in 1630 in Parma.  Ranuccio II was the eldest son of Odoardo Farnese, the fifth sovereign duke of Parma, and his wife, Margherita de’ Medici.  Odoardo died while Ranuccio was still a minor and, although he succeeded him as Duke of Parma, he had to rule for the first two years of his reign under the regency of both his uncle, Francesco Maria Farnese, and his mother.  The House of Farnese had been founded by Ranuccio’s paternal ancestor, Alessandro Farnese, who became Pope Paul III. The Farnese family had been ruling Parma and Piacenza ever since Paul III gave it to his illegitimate son, Pier Luigi Farnese. He also made Pier Luigi the Duke of Castro.  Read more… 

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Nives Meroi - mountaineer

One of history’s greatest female climbers 

The climber Nives Meroi, widely regarded as one of history’s finest female mountaineers, was born on this day in 1961 in Bonate Sotto, a small town in the province of Bergamo, about 40km (25 miles) northeast of Milan.  One half of a renowned husband-and-wife climbing team with Romano Benet, Meroi is one of only three women to have reached the peak of all 14 of the so-called eight-thousanders, the only mountains in the world that tower about 8,000m, topped by Everest (8,848m), which she conquered in 2007, and K2 (8,611), which she had scaled in 2006.  Meroi completed the full set of 14 when she reached the summit of Annapurna (8,091m) in the Himalayas in 2017.  She and Benet, born in Italy but who has Slovenian nationality, are the first married couple to have climbed all 14 together.  The two first met more than 40 years ago in Tarvisio in Friuli-Venezia Giulia. Read more… 

Maria Luisa of Savoy

Girl from Turin ruled Spain while a teenager

Maria Luisa of Savoy, who grew up to become a queen consort of Spain with a lot of influence over her husband, King Philip V, was born on this day in 1688 at the Royal Palace in Turin.  She was the daughter of Victor Amadeus II, Duke of Savoy, and his French wife, Anne Marie d’Orleans.  Philip V of Spain wanted to maintain his ties with Victor Amadeus II and therefore asked for Maria Luisa’s hand in marriage. She was wed by proxy to Philip V in 1701 when she was still only 13.  Maria Luisa was escorted to Nice and from there sailed to Antibes en route to Barcelona. The official marriage took place in November of the same year.  Maria Luisa was both beautiful and intelligent and Philip V was deeply in love with her right from the start.  In 1702 when Philip V left Spain to fight in the War of the Spanish Succession, Maria Luisa acted as Regent in his absence.  Read more…

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Reinhold Messner - mountaineer

Climber from Dolomites who conquered Everest

Reinhold Messner, the Italian mountaineer who was the first climber to reach the summit of Mount Everest without supplemental oxygen and the first to reach the peak on a solo climb, was born on this day in 1944 in Bressanone, a town in Italy's most northerly region of Alto Adige, which is also known as South Tyrol.  Messner was also the first man to ascend every one of the world's 14 peaks that rise to more than 8,000 metres (26,000 ft) above sea level.  His 1976 ascent of Everest with the Austrian climber Peter Habeler defied numerous doctors and other specialists in the effects of altitude who insisted that scaling the world's highest mountain without extra oxygen was not possible.  Born only 45km (28 miles) from Italy's border with Austria, Messner grew up speaking German and Italian and has also become fluent in English.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: A Brief History of Italy: Tracing the Renaissance, Unification, and the Lively Evolution of Art and Culture, by Dominic Haynes

Perhaps no country has had such a lasting impact on Western culture as Italy. Whether it’s the frescoes of the Renaissance, the politics of ancient Rome, or the struggles of the Catholic Church, Italy holds a central place on the world’s stage.  But how much do you actually know about Italy and its history? You’ve likely heard of Rome, Florence, and Pompeii. But do you know about the Etruscans, who laid the foundations of modern civilization way back in the 6th century BCE? Do you know what happened between the fall of Rome and the rise of the Renaissance? Or how and why Mussolini came to power in WWII?  A Brief History of Italy gives a succinct but detailed overview of Italy’s grand, sweeping history, from ancient city-state to modern cultural mecca, rivaling the grandeur of Greece and the scholarly might of Cambridge. Whether you’re a student of Italian history looking for a refresher, a brand new learner looking for an introduction, or a future traveller looking to enhance your experience through books, this is an easy-to-read overview of the major players, events and forces in Italian history, from antiquity to today.

Dominic Haynes is the author and publisher of Dominic Haynes Histories, a series of more than 20 titles that aim to provide readers with a concise introduction to the history of a particular country or topic.

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