29 September

Silvio Berlusconi - entrepreneur and politician

Businessman who was four times PM

Silvio Berlusconi, who has served as prime minister of Italy in four Governments, was born on this day in 1936 in Milan.  Head of a large media empire and owner of the football club AC Milan, Berlusconi was prime minister for a total of nine years, making him the longest-serving post-war prime minister and the third longest-serving since Italian unification.  Berlusconi was the eldest of three children born to a bank employee and his wife. He studied Law at the Università Statale in Milan, graduating with honours in 1961.  While at University he played the double bass in a group and occasionally performed as a cruise ship crooner. In later life he was to co-write both AC Milan’s and Forza Italia’s anthems and, in collaboration with Mariano Apicella, a Neapolitan singer and musician, he wrote the lyrics for two albums of Neapolitan-style songs. Read more…

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Silvio Piola - footballer

Modest star who remains Italy’s greatest goalscorer

Silvio Piola, a forward whose career tally of 364 goals between 1930 and 1954 remains the most scored by any professional player in the history of football in Italy, was born on this day in 1913 in Robbio Lomellina, a small town about 50km (31 miles) southwest of Milan.  Of those goals, 274 were scored in Serie A and 30 for the Italian national team, with whom he was a World Cup winner in 1938, scoring twice in the final against Hungary.  No other player has scored so many goals in the top flight of Italian football and only two others - Gigi Riva and Giuseppe Meazza - have scored more while wearing the azzurri shirt.  Other records still held by Piola include all-time highest Serie A goalscorer for three different clubs - his hometown club Pro Vercelli, Lazio, and Novara - and one of only two players to have scored six goals in a single match. Read more…

Enrico Fermi – nuclear physicist

Scientist from Rome who created world’s first nuclear reactor

Enrico Fermi, who has been called the architect of the nuclear age and even the father of the atomic bomb, was born on this day in 1901 in Rome.  Fermi, who won a Nobel Prize in 1938, created the world’s first nuclear reactor, the so-called Chicago Pile-1, after he had settled in the United States, and also worked on the Manhattan Project, which was the code name for the secret US research project aimed at developing nuclear weapons in the Second World War.  The third child of Alberto Fermi, an official in Italy’s Ministry of Railways, and Ida de Gattis, a school teacher, Fermi took an interest in science from an early age, inspired by a book about physics he had discovered in the local market in Campo de’ Fiori in Rome, written in Latin by a Jesuit priest in about 1840.  He read avidly as he was growing up, conducting many experiments. Read more…

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Giorgio Frassineti - politician

Mayor who proposed museum of Fascism

Giorgio Frassineti, the politician famous for proposing a museum dedicated to Fascism in Predappio, the birthplace of Benito Mussolini, was born on this day in 1964 in Forlì in Emilia-Romagna.  A member of the centre-left Partito Democratico, Frassineti was mayor of Predappio from 2009 to 2019.  Predappio, around 18km (11 miles) south of Forlì, has a population of less than 6,500.  Apart from by private car, it is accessible only by bus from Forlì, which is a pleasant small city but one that tourists mainly pass through on the way to Rimini and the Adriatic coast.  Yet 50,000 visitors a year descend on Predappio, mainly to visit the house where Mussolini was born in 1883, or the family mausoleum where his body was laid to rest following his execution by Italian partisans in 1945. Despite his alliance with the Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, Mussolini is still admired by some Italians. Read more… 

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Book of the Day: Silvio Berlusconi: Television, Power and Patrimony, by Paul Ginsborg

Silvio Berlusconi, a self-made man with a taste for luxurious living, owner of a huge television empire and the politician who likened a German MEP to a Nazi concentration camp guard - small wonder that much of democratic Europe and America has responded with considerable dismay and disdain to his governance of Italy. In Silvio Berlusconi: Television, Power and Patrimony, Paul Ginsborg, contemporary Italy's foremost historian, explains why we should take Berlusconi seriously. His new book combines historical narrative - Berlusconi's childhood in the dynamic and paternalist Milanese bourgeoisie, his strict religious schooling, a working life which has encompassed crooning, large construction projects and the creation of a commercial television empire - with careful analysis of Berlusconi's political development. While highlighting the particular Italianness of Berlusconi's trajectory, Ginsborg also finds international tendencies, such as the distorted relationship between the media system and politics. Throughout, Ginsborg suggests that Berlusconi has gotten as far as he has thanks to the wide-open space left by the strategic weaknesses of modern left-wing politics.

Author of the highly acclaimed books A History of Contemporary Italy and Italy and Its Discontents, Paul Ginsborg teaches history at Florence University.

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28 September

Filippo Illuminato - partisan

Teenager who gave his life for his city

The partisan fighter Filippo Illuminato died on this day in 1943 in Naples.  He was among more than 300 Italians killed in an uprising known as the Quattro giornate di Napoli - the Four Days of Naples - which successfully liberated the city from occupying Nazi forces ahead of the arrival of the first Allied forces in the city on 1 October.  Illuminato’s memory has been marked in a number of ways in the southern Italian city, honoured because he was only 13 years old when he was killed by German gunfire in a street battle in the famous Piazza Trieste e Trento, just a few steps from the Royal Palace. His last act had been to blow up a German armoured car.  Born into a poor family, Illuminato was working as an apprentice mechanic when he decided to join the uprising, which was sparked by a brutal crackdown imposed by the Nazis. Read more…

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Alessandro Tassoni – poet

Writer famed for legendary bucket in a belfry

The writer Alessandro Tassoni, who became famous for a poem about an historic battle which included a story about a stolen bucket, was born on this day in 1565 in Modena in Emilia Romagna.  Tassoni’s bucket, which inspired his mock-heroic poem La secchia rapita (The Rape of the Bucket), is still on public display to this day in the belfry of Modena Cathedral. According to some critics, his poem was one of the earliest - and best - Italian poems of its type, and it became very popular in Italy and abroad.  Tassoni, who also wrote about politics and was a literary critic, was born into a noble family. He lost both of his parents at an early age and was brought up by his grandfather. He first saw the bucket in Modena Cathedral when he was taken there by his grandfather.  At the age of 13, he was taught Latin and Greek and he went on to study philosophy, law, and rhetoric. Read more…

Marcello Mastroianni – actor

Film star who immortalised the Trevi Fountain

Marcello Vincenzo Domenico Mastroianni, who grew up to star in some of the most iconic Italian films of the 20th century, was born on this day in 1924 in Fontana Liri, in the province of Frosinone in Lazio.  He was the son of Ida Irolle and Ottone Mastroianni, who ran a carpentry shop. His uncle, Umberto Mastroianni, was a sculptor.  At the age of 14, Marcello made his screen debut as an extra in a 1939 film called Marionette.  His career was interrupted by the Second World War, during part of which he was interned in a German prison camp. He made several minor film appearances after the war until he landed his first big role in Atto d’accusa, directed by Giacomo Gentilomo, in 1951.  Ten years later, Mastroianni had become an international celebrity, having starred in Federico Fellini’s La dolce vita opposite Anita Ekberg. Read more…

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Pietro Badoglio - soldier and politician

Controversial general who turned against Mussolini

Marshal Pietro Badoglio, who was a general in the Italian Army in both World Wars and became Italy’s wartime prime minister after the fall of Mussolini, was born on this day in 1871 in the village of Grazzano Monferrato in Piedmont.  He was Mussolini’s Chief of Staff between 1925 and 1940, although his relationship with the Fascist dictator was fractious.  Indeed, he ultimately played a key part in Mussolini’s downfall in 1943, encouraging the Fascist Grand Council to remove him as leader and advising King Victor Emmanuel III in the lead-up to Mussolini’s arrest and imprisonment in July of that year, after which he was named as head of an emergency government.  It was Badoglio who then conducted the secret negotiations with the Allies that led to an armistice being signed barely five weeks later. However, historians are divided over whether he should be seen as an heroic figure.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: The Italian Resistance: Fascists, Guerrillas and the Allies, by Tom Behan

One of the enduring myths about World War Two is that only the Allies liberated occupied Europe. Many countries had anti-fascist Resistance movements, and Italy's was one of the biggest and most politically radical - yet it remains relatively unknown outside of its own homeland. Within Italy many plaques and streets commemorate the actions of the partisans - a movement from below that grew as Mussolini's dictatorship unravelled. Led by radical left forces, the Resistance trod a thin line between fighting their enemies at home and maintaining an uneasy working relationship with the Allies. Essential for courses on World War Two and European history, Tom Behan’s The Italian Resistance uses unpublished archival material and interviews with surviving partisans to tell an inspiring story of liberation.

Tom Behan was an academic and a prolific writer on Italian history, politics and culture and an active member of the British Socialist Workers Party for over 30 years. He was Senior Lecturer in Italian Studies at the University of Kent. 

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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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