Stefano D’Arrigo – writer

Author’s greatest work took him 17 years to complete

Stefano d'Arrigo wrote a novel
considered a literary masterpiece

The Sicilian poet, writer, and art critic Stefano D’Arrigo, who once made a small appearance in a Pier Paolo Pasolini film, was born Fortunato Stefano D’Arrigo on this day in 1919 in Alì Terme, a comune of Messina.

He became famous for his novel, Horcynus Orca (Killer Whale) which was published in 1975 and was considered a masterpiece of 20th century Italian literature.

The action in the book takes place in the aftermath of World War II and follows the journey of a Sicilian fisherman as he returns home to his village after serving in the Italian Navy during the war.

The reader experiences the fisherman’s encounters with the transformed landscape and people and sees through his eyes the impact of war on the traditional ways of life in Sicily.

D’Arrigo left Alì Terme after completing elementary school when he was ten years old. He moved with his family to Milazzo, a municipality of Messina.

When war broke out, he attended the officer cadet course in Udine in the region of  Friuli-Venezia Giulia and was then assigned to Palermo. In the summer of 1943, he was transferred to Messina where he witnessed the clashes on the Strait of Messina between the Germans and the Allies.

While D’Arrigo was still serving in the army he graduated in Messina with a thesis on the German poet Friedrich Holderlin.

D’Arrigo moved to Rome in 1946 to work for newspapers such as La Tribuna del Popolo, Il Progresso d'Italia, and Il Giornale di Sicilia. As a newspaper writer and art critic he mixed with painters and sculptors in Rome and began writing poetry. He also met his future wife, Jutta Bruto, and married her in 1948.

A collection of 17 of his poems, Codice Siciliano, was first published in 1957, but was republished with additions by Mondadori in 1975.

D'Arrigo's 1257-page epic sold some
80,000 copies when published in 1975

D’Arrigo worked on Horcynus Orca from 1957 to 1975. The novel was 1257 pages long and, on its release, it immediately sold 80,000 copies. Subsequent paperback editions sold another 45,000 copies.

It addressed the theme of the wandering hero that has been present in literature from Homer’s Odyssey to James Joyce’s Ulysses. The novel also put such a focus on the culture and literature of the sea that some scientists suggested D’Arrigo should be awarded an honorary degree in oceanography.

His epic work took so long for him to finish that the title was changed along the way. Later, a first version was made available to readers under the earlier title, I fatti della fera, which was a shorter book but contained more of the writer’s original ‘Sicilianisms’.

D’Arrigo also wrote three other novels and a theatre script and he played the part of an examining magistrate in the 1961 film, Accatone, which was written and directed by Pier Paolo Pasolino.

Stefano D’Arrigo died in Rome in May 1992.

The coast around  Alì Terme features many long
stretches of flat, pebbly beach

Travel tip:

Alì Terme is a tranquil town on Sicily’s northeastern Ionian coast, nestled between the sea and the Peloritani Mountains, about 20km south of Messina. It is best known for its thermal springs, which have been prized since ancient times for their therapeutic properties. The sulphur-rich waters feed several spas, including the renowned Terme di Alì.  The area features long pebble beaches and a relaxed promenade ideal for swimming, sunbathing and evening strolls. The Chiesa di San Rocco is the town's main church, dedicated to its patron saint, who was adopted several centuries ago after the discovery of a statue of him in a box on the beach. San Rocco is celebrated with a procession through the town on August 16. Alì Terme, a popular base for hikers as well as sun-seekers, has a station on the Messina-Catania railway line and is easily accessible via the A18 motorway.

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The Strait of Messina, at its narrowest just 3.1km
wide, separates Messina from the Italian mainland

Travel tip:

Messina is a city in the northeast of Sicily, separated from mainland Italy by the Strait of Messina. It is the third largest city on the island and is home to a large Greek-speaking community. The 12th century cathedral in Messina has a bell tower which houses one of the largest astronomical clocks in the world, built in 1933. Originally built by the Normans, the cathedral, which still contains the remains of King Conrad, ruler of Germany and Sicily in the 13th century, had to be almost entirely rebuilt following the earthquake in 1908, and again in 1943, after a fire triggered by Allied bombings. The city’s history stretches back to Greek colonists in the 8th century BC, while the Fountain of Orion in Piazza Duomo and the nearby church of the Annunziata dei Catalani reflect layers of Byzantine, Arab, and Baroque influence. As a university city, Messina has a youthful energy and many cultural events.

Use Hotels.com to find accommodation in Messina

More reading:

The prince whose novel became a classic of Sicilian literature

Sicily’s Nobel Prize-winning poet, known for his lyrical and existential verse

A novelist whose work focuses on Sicilian politics, Mafia influence and moral ambiguity

Also on this day:

70BC: The birth of the Roman poet Virgil

1764: The moment that inspired Edward Gibbon’s epic Roman history

1785: The birth of painter Giovanni Migliara

1905: The birth of footballer Angelo Schiavio

1964: The birth of astronaut Roberto Vittori

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14 October

Learco Guerra - racing cyclist

“Human Locomotive” set record for most wins in one season

The racing cyclist Learco Guerra, who won the Giro d'Italia in 1934 and was world champion in 1931, was born on this day in 1902 in San Nicolò Po, a hamlet on the banks of the Po river in Lombardy, about 15km (9 miles) south of Mantua. He gained the nickname of "Human Locomotive" from the editor of Gazzetta dello Sport, organisers of the Giro d’Italia, for his ability to maintain high speeds over long periods.  Guerra’s single Giro d’Italia victory came in a year when he won 18 races, including 10 stages of the Giro d’Italia, the Giro di Lombardia and four rounds of the national championships. It was a record by an individual rider in a single season that would stand until the 1970s.  His fame was exploited by the Fascist government, which profited from his heroic status. Benito Mussolini praised his 'manly Italian virtues' of strength, stamina and determination.  Read more…

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Palma Giovane - painter

Mannerist took the mantle of Tintoretto 

The Venetian artist Jacopo Negretti, best known as Jacopo Palma il Giovane - Palma the Younger - or simply Palma Giovane, died in Venice on this day in 1628.  Essentially a painter of the Italian Mannerist school, Palma Giovane's style evolved over time and after the death of Tintoretto in 1594 he became the most revered artist in Venice.  He became in demand beyond Venice, too, particularly in Bergamo, the city in Lombardy that was a dominion of Venice, and in central Europe.  He received many commissions in Bergamo and was often employed in Prague by the Habsburg Emperor, Rudolph II, a noted art connoisseur.  Palma had been born into a family of painters. His great uncle, also called Jacopo, was the painter Palma Vecchio - Palma the Elder - while his father, Antonio Negretti, was a pupil of the elder Palma’s workshop manager, Bonifacio Veronese.  Read more…

Alessandro Safina – singer

Tenor who has blended opera and rock

Alessandro Safina, a singer trained in opera who has expanded the so-called ‘crossover’ pop-opera genre to include rock influences, was born on this day in 1963 in Siena.  A household name in Italy, the tenor is less well known outside his own country but has recorded duets with international stars such as Sarah Brightman, South Korean soprano Sumi Jo, Rod Stewart, former Pretenders singer Chrissie Hynde, Scottish actor and singer Ewan McGregor and the superstar Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli.  Safina’s biggest album to date is Insieme a Te, which has sold more than 700,000 copies.  It was written in collaboration with the Italian pianist and composer Romano Musumarra, who helped realise Safina’s ambition of creating soulful rock-inspired music for the tenor voice.  He first performed songs from the album at the Olympia theatre in Paris in 1999.  Read more…

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Alesso Baldovinetti - painter

One of first to paint realistic landscapes

The early Renaissance painter Alesso Baldovinetti, whose great fresco of the Annunciation in the cloister of the Basilica of the Santissima Annunziata in Florence is still intact, was born on this day in 1425 in Florence.  Baldovinetti was among a group described as scientific realists and naturalists in art which included Andrea del Castagno, Paolo Uccello and Domenico Veneziano. Influenced by Uccello’s use of visual perspective, he had a particular eye for detail and his views of the Arno river in his Nativity and Madonna and Child are regarded as among Europe’s earliest paintings of accurately reproduced landscapes.  Veneziano’s influence is reflected in the pervasive light of his earliest surviving works, and he was also greatly influenced by Fra' Angelico. Historians believe that in the 1460s Baldovinetti was the finest painter in Florence. Read more…

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Book of the Day: Giro d'Italia: The Story of the World's Most Beautiful Bike Race, by Colin O'Brien

Born of tumult in 1909, the Giro d'Italia helped unite a nation. Since then it has reflected it too; the race's capricious and unpredictable nature matching the passions and extremes of Italy itself. A desperately hard race through a beautiful country, the Giro has bred characters and stories that dramatise the shifting culture and society of its home: Alfonsina Strada, who cropped her hair and raced against the men in 1924. Ottavio Bottecchia, expected to challenge for the winner's Maglia Rosa in 1928, until killed on a training ride, probably by Mussolini's Black Shirts. Fausto Coppi, the metropolitan playboy with amphetamines in his veins, guided by a mystic blind masseur; and his arch rival Gino Bartali; humble, pious and countrified (and brave: recently it emerged he smuggled papers for persecuted Jewish Italians). The Giro's most tragic hero - Marco Pantani, born to climb but fated to lose. The story of the Giro d'Italia - Italy's equivalent of the Tour de France, and its superior in the eyes of many - combines heroism, suffering, feuds and betrayals, tradition under threat from modernity, all playing out against a timeless landscape.

Colin O’Brien is a sports writer based in Dublin, having previously been working from Rome for ten years. He has written for some of the leading sports publications globally, and contributed to national newspapers in Ireland and the UK.

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13 October

Claudius - Roman emperor

Suspicious death of leader who conquered Britain

The Roman emperor Claudius, whose reign was notable among other things for turning Britain into a province of the Empire, died on this day in 54 AD.  It is a widely held view that he was poisoned on the orders of his scheming fourth wife, Julia Agrippina, the mother of his successor, Nero, in one of the power struggles that at the time were ever present.  It is thought he ingested some poisonous mushrooms that his taster, the eunuch Halotus, had assured him were safe to eat, either at an official banquet on the evening of October 12 or at his first meal of the following day.  When Claudius began to show signs of distress, one version of the story is that his physician, Xenophon, pushed a feather into his throat, ostensibly to make him vomit, but actually to ensure that he did not recover by administering more poison, with which he had coated the feather.  Read more…

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Giorgio Massari - architect

Work in 18th century Venice had echoes of Palladio

The architect Giorgio Massari, who designed a number of significant churches and palaces in Venice in the 18th century, was born on this day in 1687.  Massari’s legacy in Venice includes the imposing Palazzo Grassi on the Grand Canal and the church of Santa Maria del Rosario, commonly known as the Gesuati, on the Giudecca Canal, which is acknowledged as his masterpiece.  He redesigned Santa Maria della Visitazione - known as the Pietà - the church on the Riva degli Schiavoni famous for its association with the composer Antonio Vivaldi, who wrote some of his most famous music while working as a violin teacher at the adjoining orphanage.  His designs, especially his churches and villas, were often influenced by the work of the 16th century Classical architect Andrea Palladio and by Massari’s fellow Venetian, Baldassare Longhena. Read more…

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Piero Dusio - sportsman and entrepreneur

His Cisitalia company revolutionised automobile design

The footballer, racing driver and businessman Piero Dusio was born on this day in 1899 in Scurzolengo, a village in the hills above Asti, in Piedmont.  Dusio made his fortune in textiles but it is for his postwar venture into car production that he is most remembered. Dusio’s Cisitalia firm survived for less than 20 years before going bankrupt in the mid-1960s but in its short life produced a revolutionary car - the Cisitalia 202 - that was a gamechanger for the whole automobile industry.  Dusio played football for the Turin club Juventus, joining the club at 17 years old, and was there for seven years before a knee injury forced him to retire at the age of only 24, having made 15 appearances for the senior team, four of them in Serie A matches.  He kept his connection with the club and from 1942 to 1948 was Juventus president. Read more…

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Execution of former King of Naples

Joachim Murat, key aide of Napoleon, shot by firing squad

Joachim Murat, the French cavalry leader who was a key military strategist in Napoleon's rise to power in France and his subsequent creation of an empire in continental Europe, was executed on this day in 1815 in Pizzo in Calabria.  The charismatic Marshal was captured by Bourbon forces in the coastal town in Italy's deep south as he tried to gather support for an attempt to regain control of Naples, where he had been king until the fall of Napoleon saw the throne returned to the Bourbon king Ferdinand IV in May 1815.  Murat was held prisoner in the Castello di Pizzo before a tribunal found him guilty of insurrection and sentenced him to death by firing squad. The 48-year-old soldier from Lot in south-west France had been an important figure in the French Revolutionary Wars and gained recognition from Napoleon as one of his best generals. Read more…

Francesca Bertini - silent movie actress

Diva described as Italy’s first film star

The actress Francesca Bertini, one of the three so-called divas of Italy’s silent movie era, died on this day in 1985 in Rome at the age of 93. Between her screen debut in 1907 and her effective retirement in 1935, Bertini appeared in 139 titles. Her last appearance came in 1976, at the age of 84, when the director Bernardo Bertolucci persuaded her to accept a cameo in his epic historical drama, Novecento (1900).  Bertini, Lyda Borelli and Pina Menichelli were regarded as Italy’s three biggest female stars of the silent movie years and though Borelli came to be seen as the most talented of the three, there is no doubt that Bertini was a woman of outstanding ability. She has been described as Italy's first film star.  Her most famous film, Assunta Spina, a 1915 production, not only saw her take the title role but write scripts and direct many of the scenes. Read more…

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Eugenio Barsanti - engineer

Created world’s first working internal combustion engine

The engineer Eugenio Barsanti, whose internal combustion engine was the first working example of the technology to be produced anywhere in the world, was born on this day in 1821 in Pietrasanta, a town in northern Tuscany.   The Belgian-French engineer Étienne Lenoir and the German Nicolaus Otto are credited with the first commercially successful internal combustion engines, but Barsanti’s machine, which he developed with partner Felice Matteucci, was unveiled in 1853 - six years before Lenoir’s and eight years ahead of Otto’s.  Barsanti might have achieved commercial success himself but shortly after reaching an agreement with a company in Belgium to produce his machine on a commercial scale he contracted typhoid fever, from which he never recovered.  A rather sickly child, known by his parents as Nicolò, Barsanti took the name Father Eugenio after entering the novitiate of the Piarists. Read more…

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Mario Buda - anarchist

Prime suspect in Wall Street Bombing 

Mario Buda, the anarchist suspected but never convicted of the 1920 Wall Street bombing, was born on this day in 1884 in Savignano sul Rubicone, a town in the Emilia-Romagna region, about 90km (56 miles) southeast of Bologna.  Some 38 people were killed, with hundreds more injured, when a horse-drawn cart packed with explosives blew up close to the New York Stock Exchange building on the famous thoroughfare. Buda was identified by a blacksmith who had rented him the horse and Federal agents began an investigation.  The Italian, who had emigrated to the United States in 1907, was known to the police after being arrested previously in connection with a double-murder in the town of Braintree, Massachusetts. He had escaped from custody on that occasion and evaded detection again, boarding a ship to return to Italy before he could be questioned. Read more... 

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Book of the Day: Claudius Caesar: Image and Power in the Early Roman Empire, by Josiah Osgood

The story of Claudius has often been told before. Ancient writers saw the emperor as the dupe of his wives and palace insiders; Robert Graves tried to rehabilitate him as a far shrewder, if still frustrated, politician. In this book, Josiah Osgood shifts the focus off the personality of Claudius and on to what his tumultuous years in power reveal about the developing political culture of the early Roman Empire. What precedents set by Augustus were followed? What had to be abandoned? How could a new emperor win the support of key elements of Roman society? This richly illustrated discussion draws on a range of newly discovered documents, exploring events that move far beyond the city of Rome and Italy to Egypt and Judea, Morocco and Britain. Claudius Caesar provides a new perspective not just on Claudius himself, but on all Roman emperors, the Roman Empire, and the nature of empires more generally.

Josiah Osgood is a professor of Classics at Georgetown University in Washington DC. The author of many scholarly works on Roman history, he is fascinated by the Greek and Roman eras and the way their government, architecture, theatrical entertainments, and so much more live on in modern culture.

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12 October

NEW - Bernardo Pisano – musician and priest

First composer to have collection of his music printed

Bernardo Pisano, who is believed to have been the first composer of the Italian madrigal, was born on this day in 1490 in Florence.  Pisano - sometimes known as Pagoli - was so important in musical circles during his lifetime that he is also thought to have been the first composer anywhere in the world to have a printed collection of secular music devoted entirely to himself.  Although he was born in Florence, it is supposed that, because he used the name Pisano, he must have also spent some time living in Pisa. As a young man, he sang and studied music at the Church of the Annunziata in Florence. In 1512, he became maestro di cappella there in addition to supervising the choristers and singing in the chapels himself. As a favourite of the Medici family, he was appointed to sing in the papal chapel in Rome in 1514 after Cardinal Giovanni de’ Medici became Pope Leo X. Read more… 

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Ascanio Sobrero - chemist

Professor who discovered nitroglycerine

The chemist Ascanio Sobrero, who discovered the volatile compound that became known as nitroglycerine, was born on this day in 1812 in Casale Monferrato in Piedmont.  Nitroglycerine has a pharmaceutical use as a vasodilator, improving blood flow in the treatment of angina, but it is more widely known as the key ingredient in explosives such as dynamite and gelignite.  Its commercial potential was exploited not by Sobrero but by Alfred Nobel, the Swedish businessman and philanthropist who gave his name to the annually awarded Nobel Prizes.  Sobrero, aware of how much damage it could cause, had actually warned against nitroglycerine being used outside the laboratory.  Little is known about Sobrero’s early life, apart from his being born in Casale Monferrato, a town about 60km (37 miles) east of Turin.  Read more…

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Piero della Francesca - Renaissance painter

Mathematician famous for exploring perspective

Piero della Francesca, recognised as one of the greatest painters of the early Renaissance, died on this day in 1492 in what was then Borgo Santo Sepolcro, near Arezzo.  He was thought to have been around 77 years old and it has been popularly theorised that he was blind in the later years of his life, although evidence to support the claim is sketchy.  Della Francesca’s work was characterised by his exploration of perspective and geometric form, which was hardly surprising since in his own time he was as famous among his peers as a mathematician and geometer as well as an artist.  He came to be recognised in the 20th century as having made a major contribution to the Renaissance.  His fresco cycle The History – or Legend – of the True Cross in the Basilica of San Francesco in Arezzo, painted between 1452 and 1466, is among his best-known works. Read more…

Gillo Pontecorvo - film director

Most famous film was banned in France

The film director Gillo Pontecorvo, whose best known film, La battaglia di Algeri (The Battle of Algiers) won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1966 and was nominated for three Academy Awards, died on this day in 2006 in Rome, aged 86.  A former journalist who had been an Italian Resistance volunteer and a member of the Italian Communist Party, Pontecorvo had been in declining health for some years, although he continued to make documentary films and commercials until shortly before his death.  Although it was made a decade or so after the peak years of the movement, La battaglia di Algeri is in the tradition of Italian neorealism, with newsreel style footage and mainly non-professional actors.  Pontecorvo also won acclaim for his 1960 film Kapò, set in a Second World War concentration camp. Read more… 

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Luciano Pavarotti - tenor

Singer who became known as ‘King of the High Cs’

Luciano Pavarotti, one of the greatest operatic tenors of all time, was born on this day in 1935 in Modena in Emilia-Romagna.  Pavarotti made many stage appearances and recordings of arias from opera throughout his career. He also crossed over into popular music, gaining fame for the superb quality of his voice.  Towards the end of his career, as one of the legendary Three Tenors, he became  known to an even wider audience because of his concerts and television appearances.  Pavarotti began his professional career on stage in Italy in 1961 and gave his final performance, singing the Puccini aria, Nessun Dorma, at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin. He died the following year as a result of pancreatic cancer, aged 71.  The young Pavarotti had dreamt of becoming a goalkeeper for a football team.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: The Oxford Book of Italian Madrigals (Vocal score), by Alec Harman

The Italian madrigal flourished during the Renaissance, emerging in the 1520s as a secular vocal form blending poetic expression with intricate polyphony. Initially influenced by the frottola and Franco-Flemish styles, it evolved under composers such as Philippe Verdelot and Jacques Arcadelt. By the late 16th century, madrigals grew more expressive and dramatic, exemplified by Luca Marenzio and Carlo Gesualdo’s chromatic innovations. Claudio Monteverdi later transformed the genre, bridging Renaissance and Baroque aesthetics. Madrigals were typically sung a cappella by small ensembles, setting Italian poetry - often Petrarchan - to music. Their emotional depth and artistic refinement made them a cornerstone of early modern European music.  The Oxford Book of Italian Madrigals contains 55 examples, for mixed voices covering the whole range of types, and the whole period. All have been chosen for their musical value - they are small masterpieces.

Alec Harman was an American musicologist and professor of music, specialising in medieval, Renaissance and Baroque music.

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