27 September

Cosimo de’ Medici – banker and politician

Father of Florence used his wealth to encourage great architecture

Today is the date Cosimo di Giovanni de’ Medici, the founder of the Medici dynasty, celebrated his birthday.  Cosimo and his twin brother, Damiano, were born to Giovanni di Bicci de’ Medici and Piccarda Bueri in April 1389, but Damiano survived for only a short time.  The twins were named after the saints Cosmas and Damian, whose feast day in those days was celebrated on September 27. Cosimo later decided to celebrate his birthday on September 27, his ‘name day’, rather than on the actual date of his birth.  Cosimo’s father came from a wealthy family and after making even more money he married well. A supporter of the arts in Florence, he was one of the financial backers for the magnificent doors of the Baptistery by Lorenzo Ghiberti, although they were not completed until after his death.  By the time his father died, Cosimo was 40 and had become a rich banker himself. Read more… 

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Vittorio Vidali - communist revolutionary 

One-time Russian agent ultimately elected Italian deputy and senator

The revolutionary Vittorio Vidali, who operated as a secret agent of the Russian communists in the United States, Mexico and Spain, was born on this day in 1900 in the coastal town of Muggia, near Trieste.  Known at various times by at least five different names, he was implicated in the murder of a fellow agent and in an attempt to assassinate Leon Trotsky, although in neither case could his involvement be proved. After returning to Italy at the end of World War Two, he served as a deputy and then a senator in the Italian parliament.  Vidali was politically active from an early age, joining the Socialist Youth movement in Trieste at the age of 16. At 20 he was one of the founders of the youth federation of the Italian Communist Party (Pci). In the same year - 1921 - he was arrested for his part in rioting at the San Marco shipyards where his father worked.  Read more… 

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Grazia Deledda - Nobel Prize winner

First Italian woman to be honoured

The novelist Grazia Deledda, who was the first of only two Italian women to be made a Nobel laureate when she won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1926, was born on this day in 1871 in the city of Nuoro in Sardinia.  A prolific writer from the age of 13, she published around 50 novels or story collections over the course of her career, most of them drawing on her own experience of life in the rugged Sardinian countryside.  The Nobel prize was awarded "for her idealistically inspired writings which with plastic clarity picture the life on her native island and with depth and sympathy deal with human problems in general."  Deledda’s success came at the 11th time of asking, having been first nominated in 1913. The successful nomination came from Henrik Schuck, a literature historian at the Swedish Academy.  Born into a middle-class family, Deledda drew inspiration for her characters from her father’s friends and business acquaintances. Read more… 

Jovanotti - musician

Former rapper an important figure in Italian pop culture

The singer-songwriter Lorenzo Cherubini – better known as Jovanotti – was born on this day in 1966 in Rome.  Famous in his early days as Italy’s first rap star, Jovanotti has evolved into one of Italian pop music’s most significant figures, his work progressing from hip hop to funk and introducing ska and other strands of world music to Italian audiences, his increasingly sophisticated compositions even showing classical influences.  He has come to match Ligabue in terms of the ability to attract massive audiences, while his international record sales in the mid-90s were on a par with Eros Ramazzotti and Laura Pausini.  Since his recording debut in 1988 he has sold more than seven million albums.  Although born in Rome, Cherubini came from a Tuscan family and spent much of his childhood and adolescence in Cortona in the province of Arezzo. Read more…

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Gracie Fields - actress and singer

English-born performer who made Capri her home 

The English actress, singer and comedian Gracie Fields died on this day in 1979 at her home on Capri, the island on the south side of the Gulf of Naples.  The 81-year-old former forces sweetheart had been in hospital following a bout of pneumonia but appeared to be regaining her health.  The previous day she had walked with her husband, Boris, to the post office on the island to collect her mail.  Some English newspapers reported that Gracie had died in the arms of her husband but that version of events was later corrected. It is now accepted that Boris had already left La Canzone del Mare, the singer's original Capri home overlooking the island's landmark Faraglioni rocks, to work on the central heating at a second property they had bought in Anacapri, on the opposite side of the island, and that Gracie was with her housekeeper, Irena, when she passed away.  Read more… 

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Flaminio Scala - Renaissance writer and actor

Influential figure in growth of commedia dell’arte

The writer, actor and director Flaminio Scala, who is recognised as one of the most important figures in Renaissance theatre, was born on this day in 1552 in Rome.  Commonly known by his stage name Flavio, Scala was the author of the first published collection of scenarios - sketches - from the commedia dell’arte genre.  These scenarios, brought together under the title Il Teatro delle Favole Rappresentative, were short comic plays said to have provided inspiration to playwrights such William Shakespeare and Molière.  They were unusual because the theatre companies were so worried about rival troupes stealing their ideas that publishing them was considered too risky.  Commedia dell’arte was a theatrical form that used improvised dialogue and a cast of masked, colourful stock characters such as Arlecchino, Colombina and Pulcinella. Read more…

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Book of the Day: The Rise and Fall of the House of Medici, by Christopher Hibbert

At its height. Renaissance Florence was a centre of enormous wealth, power and influence. A republican city-state funded by trade and banking, its often bloody political scene was dominated by rich mercantile families, the most famous of which were the Medici. The Rise and Fall of the House of Medici is an enthralling book that charts the family’s huge influence on the political, economic and cultural history of Florence. Beginning in the early 1430s with the rise of the dynasty under the near-legendary Cosimo de Medici, it moves through their golden era as patrons of some of the most remarkable artists and architects of the Renaissance, to the era of the Medici Popes and Grand Dukes, Florence’s slide into decay and bankruptcy, and the end, in 1737, of the Medici line.

Christopher Hibbert was an English writer, historian and biographer. Probably the most widely-read popular historian of the 20th century, his many books included Benito Mussolini: A Biography, Garibaldi and His Enemies, The Borgias and Their Enemies, and histories of Rome, Venice and Florence. 

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26 September

Anna Magnani - Oscar-winning film star

Roman one of only three Italians to land best actor award

Anna Magnani, who found fame for her performance in Roberto Rossellini's neorealist classic movie Rome, Open City and went on to become one of only three Italian actors to win an Academy Award, died on this day in Rome in 1973.   She had been suffering from pancreatic cancer and her death at the age of just 65 shocked her fans and close friends.  Rossellini, with whom she had a tempestuous affair before he ditched her for the Swedish actress, Ingrid Bergman, was at her bedside along with her son, Luca.  The American playwright Tennessee Williams, who wrote the part of Serafina in his play The Rose Tattoo specifically with Magnani in mind, was so devastated he could not bring himself to attend her funeral.  Instead he sent 20 dozen roses to signify the bond they developed while working together.  When Williams was in Rome they would meet for cocktails on the roof-top terrace of her home, overlooking the city. Read more… 

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St Francis Basilica struck by earthquake

Historic art works damaged in double tremor

The historic Basilica of Saint Francis in Assisi suffered serious damage on this day in 1997 when two earthquakes struck in the central Apennines.  The quakes claimed 11 lives in the Assisi area and forced the evacuation of 70 per cent of buildings in the Umbrian town, at least temporarily, because of safety fears.  Many homes were condemned as unsafe for occupation and residents had to be housed in makeshift accommodation.  The event also caused considerable damage to frescoes painted in the 13th century by Giotto and to other important works by Cimabue, Pietro Lorenzetti and Simone Martini.  The first quake, measuring 5.5 on the Richter Scale, struck shortly after 2.30am and was felt as far away as Rome, some 170km (44 miles) to the south.  A series of smaller tremors kept residents on edge through the night.  Yet the biggest quake was still to come. Read more… 

Enzo Bearzot - World Cup-winning coach

Led Italy to 1982 triumph in Spain

Enzo Bearzot, the pipe-smoking coach who plotted Italy’s victory at the 1982 World Cup in Spain and at the same time changed the way the national team traditionally played, was born on September 26, 1927 in the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region of northwest Italy.  Italy had a reputation for ultra-defensive and sometimes cynical football but in 44 years had won only one major competition, the 1968 European championships, a much lower-key affair than the current four-yearly Euros, which Italy hosted.  But Bearzot was an admirer of the so-called ‘total football’ philosophy advanced by the Dutch coach Rinus Michels, with which the Netherlands national team reached two World Cup finals in the 1970s, albeit without winning.  Italy did not impress at the start of their Spain adventure, recording three fairly lacklustre draws in their group matches. Read more… 

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Book of the Day: The Rose Tattoo and Other Plays (Penguin Modern Classics), by Tennessee Williams

In these three exotic, steamy dramas Tennessee Williams portrays loss, faded lives and passionate love affairs.  The Rose Tattoo is set in a bustling, Sicilian-American community, where newly widowed Serafina is paralysed by grief, until she has her romantic illusions about her dead husband shattered and rediscovers her true nature as a fiery prima donna, in a life-affirming celebration of love and sex. Williams explores a new 'wild and unrestricted' theatrical form in the colourful tropical fantasy Camino Real, while Orpheus Descending, however, takes us into the dark territory of the Deep South: the corrupt hell of a small, brutal township, where a forbidden and tragic love affair sparks horrific violence.

Tennessee Williams was born in 1911 in Columbus, Mississippi. His most famous works include A Streetcar Named Desire, The Glass Menagerie, and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, all of which have become permanent fixtures in modern American theatre and film. Other notable plays include Summer and Smoke, The Rose Tattoo, and Suddenly, Last Summer. He died in 1983.

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Elio Germano - actor

Contemporary star has won multiple awards

Elio Germano has become one of Italy's most
popular and acclaimed movie actors

Elio Germano, one of Italy’s most acclaimed contemporary actors, was born in Rome on this day in 1980.

Germano has won six David di Donatello awards - Italy’s highest film honour - across a career in which he has won praise for the emotional depth of his performances in films often notable for their social realism. 

The prestigious prize, named after the bronze statue of the biblical hero created by the Renaissance sculptor Donatello, is awarded each year by the  Academy of Italian Cinema. Only four actors have won the award more times since their inception in 1955. 

He won it five times as best actor, the first coming in 2007 in what was his breakthrough year, cast in one of the lead roles in Daniele Luchetti’s Mio fratello è figlio unico - My Brother Is an Only Child.

Four years later, Germano teamed up with Luchetti again to pick up the best actor award for a second time for his performance in La nostra vita - Our Life - for which he also shared a Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival.  

He was best actor again 2015 for his portrayal of the poet Giacomo Leopardi in Mario Martone’s Il giovane favoloso - The Fabulous Young Man, which was alternatively titled Leopardi. Further David di Donatello awards followed for Giorgio Diritti’s Hidden Away (best actor, 2020) and Andrea Segre’s Berlinguer - La grande ambizione (best actor, 2024) in which he played the Communist leader, Enrico Berlinguer.

Elio Germano's breakthrough came in
Mio Fratello è Figlio Unico 

Germano picked up the best supporting actor award in 2023, playing opposite Michele Riondino in Palazzina Laf, which Riondino also directed. All told, he won 28 awards, including the Silver Bear, another best actor prize, from the Berlin Film Festival for Hidden Away.

Born in Rome to a Molisan family from Duronia in the province of Campobasso, Germano made his screen debut at the age of just 12 in the directing duo Castellano e Pipolo's 1992 movie Ci hai rotto papà. He received formal acting training at the Teatro Azione in Rome. 

He had an opportunity to work in theatre but his career moved in a different direction after landing a part in Carlo Vanzina's 1999 comedy, Il cielo in una stanza, which launched him as a popular actor with Italian audiences.

His breakthrough year, though, was 2007, when he was cast as the lead in the successful movies Fallen Heroes as well as My Brother is an Only Child, both directed by Daniele Luchetti. 

The following year he received his first international recognition, winning the Shooting Stars Award at the 58th Berlin International Film Festival.

Germano’s success in winning over audiences and critics can be attributed to a number of characteristics in his acting style.

For example, he has consistently rejected the polished, romantic archetype of the Italian male lead, gravitating instead towards flawed, working-class, politically entangled characters, of which Accio in My Brother Is an Only Child was a prime example. His performances have been notable for psychological nuance and emotional realism, reshaping audience expectations of masculinity and heroism in Italian film.

Germano won plaudits for his animated portrayal
of the former Communist leader Enrico Berlinguer

In La nostra vita, he played a grieving construction worker navigating bureaucratic and emotional collapse, the role highlighting social inequality, the precariousness of working life and political disillusionment. 

He has shown himself to be equally at home portraying historical figures such as Leopardi and Berlinguer, which showcased his ability to humanise iconic individuals without flattening their complexity. 

For Germano, 2024 was a busy year. Apart from taking the lead role in Berlinguer - La grande ambizione, he collaborated again with Luchetti in the director’s 2024 movie, Confidenza - Trust - also starring Federica Rosselini, in which he plays a revered schoolteacher haunted by his past, and starred opposite Tony Servillo and Daniela Marra in Sicilian Letters, based on a true story, in which Germano plays the Mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro, who succeeded Bernardo Provenzano and Salvatore Riina as the unchallenged boss of all bosses within the Sicilian Cosa Nostra, spending three decades as a fugitive.

Away from acting, Germano says his passion is music. He writes songs and performs with a rap group, BestieRare, with whom he has so far recorded three albums.

Duronia, perched on a hill in Molise, has a history
stretching back to the third century BC

Travel tip: 

Duronia, where Germano has his family roots, is a historic hilltop village in the Molise region of southern Italy, about 20km (12 miles) northwest of Campobasso, nestling in an area of wooded hills and steep-sided valleys. The name Duronia can be traced back to a Samnite settlement conquered by Rome in 293 BC, although the modern town adopted this name only after 1875, having previously been known as Civitavecchia. Above the town lie remnants of Stone Age megalithic structures, believed to have been used for funerary and commemorative rituals. Duronia today is a popular destination for Canadian descendants of emigrants who left the area in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, settling in particular in Montreal and Vancouver.  The annual Feast of San Rocco, a celebration dedicated to Duronia’s patron saint, which takes place every August, is another highlight. 

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Rome's Non-Catholic Cemetery, just a short distance
from the Teatro Azione, is well worth visiting

Travel tip:

The Teatro Azione, where Germano received his formal theatrical education, is one of Rome’s most respected acting schools, known for its rigorous training in both theatre and film. Founded in 1983 by Cristiano Censi and Isabella Del Bianco, its alumni apart from Elio Germano include Maya Sansa, Carolina Crescentini and Nicolas Vaporidi. It is located in Via dei Magazzini Generali in the Ostiense district, once an industrial area but now a vibrant and evolving area just south of the historic centre, notable for street art, nightlife, and contemporary culture. Attractions nearby include Rome’s Non-Catholic Cemetery (Cimitero Acattolico), also referred to as the Protestant Cemetery or the English Cemetery, a serene garden cemetery that is the resting place of John Keats, Percy Shelley and Antonio Gramsci among others, with a heavy emphasis on artists, writers and philosophers. Also look out for the Piramide Cestia, a striking 1st-century BC Egyptian-style pyramid built as a tomb for Gaius Cestius, and the Centrale Montemartini, a former power plant turned museum, where classical sculptures are dramatically displayed among turbines and industrial relics.

Rome hotels from Expedia

More reading:

The comic genius who won seven David di Donatello awards

Italy’s ultimate screen siren who is also an Oscar winner

The stage and screen star once dubbed ‘Italy’s Olivier’

Also on this day: 

1599: The birth of architect Francesco Borromini

1773: The birth of biologist Agostino Bassi

1930: The birth of fashion designer Nino Cerruti

1955: The birth of blues musician Zucchero

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25 September

NEW - Elio Germano - actor 

Contemporary star has won multiple awards

Elio Germano, one of Italy’s most acclaimed contemporary actors, was born in Rome on this day in 1980.  Germano has won six David di Donatello awards - Italy’s highest film honour - across a career in which he has won praise for the emotional depth of his performances in films often notable for their social realism.  The prestigious prize, named after the bronze statue of the biblical hero created by the Renaissance sculptor Donatello, is awarded each year by the  Academy of Italian Cinema. Only four actors have won the award more times since their inception in 1955. He won it five times as best actor, the first coming in 2007 in what was his breakthrough year, cast in one of the lead roles in Daniele Luchetti’s Mio fratello è figlio unico - My Brother Is an Only Child.  Four years later, Germano teamed up with Luchetti again to pick up the best actor award for a second time for his performance in La nostra vita - Our Life - for which he also shared a Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival.  Read more… 

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Nino Cerruti - fashion designer

Turn of fate led to a life in haute couture 

The fashion designer Nino Cerruti, who used the family textile business as the platform on which to build one of the most famous names in haute couture, was born on this day in 1930 in Biella in northern Piedmont.  At its peak, the Cerruti brand became synonymous with Hollywood glitz and the movie industry, both as the favourite label of many top stars and the supplier of clothing ranges for a string of box office hits.  Yet Cerruti might have lived a very different life had fate not intervened. Although Lanificio Fratelli Cerruti - the textile mills set up by his grandfather, Antonio, and his great uncles, Stefano and Quintino - had been the family firm since 1881, Nino wanted to be a journalist.  But when his father, Silvio, who had taken over the running of the business from Antonio, died prematurely, Nino was almost obligated to take over, even though he was only 20 years old. Read more… 

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Francesco Borromini - architect

Rival of Bernini and Da Cortona was pioneer of Roman Baroque

The architect Francesco Borromini, who was a pivotal figure alongside Gian Lorenzo Bernini and Pietro da Cortona in the development of the Roman Baroque style in the 17th century, was born on this day in 1599 in the village of Bissone, now in Switzerland but at that time part of the Duchy of Lombardy.  Borromini, who was born Francesco Castelli, gained widespread recognition for his innovative design of the small San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane church on the Quirinal Hill in Rome, which was his first independent commission and is regarded by some historians as one of the starting points for Italian Baroque.  His other major works include the church of Sant'Ivo alla Sapienza, which was part of Rome’s Sapienza University, the Re Magi Chapel, the Palazzo Spada and the church of Sant'Andrea delle Fratte.  Read more…

Agostino Bassi – biologist

Scientist who rescued the silk industry in Italy

Bacteriologist Agostino Bassi, who was the first to expound the parasitic theory of infection, was born on this day in 1773 at Mairago near Lodi in Lombardy.  He developed his theory by studying silkworms, which helped him discover that many diseases are caused by microorganisms.  This was 10 years in advance of the work of Louis Pasteur.  In 1807 Bassi began an investigation into the silkworm disease mal de segno, also known as muscardine, which was causing serious economic losses in Italy and France.  After 25 years of research, Bassi was able to demonstrate that the disease was contagious and was caused by a microscopic parasitic fungus.  He concluded that the organism, at the time named botrytis paradoxa, but now known as beauvaria bassiana in his honour, was transmitted among the worms by contact and by infected food.  Read more…

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Zucchero Fornaciari – singer

Sweet success for writer and performer

The singer-songwriter now known simply as Zucchero was born Adelmo Fornaciari on this day in 1955 in Roncocesi, a small village near Reggio Emilia.  In a career lasting more than 30 years, he has sold more than 50 million records and has become popular all over the world.  He is hailed as ‘the father of the Italian blues’, having introduced blues music to Italy, and he has won many awards for his music. He has also been given the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic.  As a young boy, Zucchero lived in the Tuscan seaside resort of Forte dei Marmi, where he sang in the choir and learned to play the organ at his local church.  He became fond of soul music and began to write his own songs and play the tenor saxophone. He started playing in bands while studying veterinary medicine but gave up his studies to follow his dream of becoming a singer.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Nino Cerruti: Fashion Icon of the Century, by Cindi Cook

With a text in English and German, this book is an entertaining and gorgeously illustrated homage to the great Italian fashion designer, whose deconstructed jackets and supple fabrics revolutionised menswear in the 1960s. Cerruti took over the family business, which his father established in 1881, at the age of 20 and immediately began to make his mark. In 1965, he opened a boutique in Paris where he launched women's fashion, being the first designer to focus on pants (this at a time when many restaurants in Paris denied women entry if they were wearing pants). He dressed generations of movie stars, both on and off-screen, including Jean-Paul Belmondo, Yves Montand, Catherine Deneuve, Richard Gere (wearing a Cerruti suit in Pretty Woman), Jack Nicholson, Michael Douglas, Tom Hanks, and Kathleen Turner, among others. Nino Cerruti: Fashion Icon of the Century showcases the elegant nonchalance and uncompromising creativity that went into his designs, and follows his career as one of the great pioneers of 20th century fashion.

Cindi Cook is a writer and editor currently working as a Paris correspondent for an international news agency. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, New York Post, Women's Wear Daily, Hamptons, and numerous other newspapers and magazines.

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