22 October

Giovanni Martinelli – tenor

Singer made his fame abroad

One of the most famous tenors of the early 20th century, Giovanni Martinelli, was born on this day in 1885 in Montagnana in the province of Padua in the Veneto.  Martinelli began his career playing the clarinet in a military band and then studied as a singer with Giuseppe Mandolini in Milan. He made his professional debut at the Teatro del Verme in Milan in the title role of Giuseppe Verdi's Ernani in 1910.  Martinelli became famous for singing the role of Dick Johnson in Giacomo Puccini's La fanciulla del West, which he performed in Rome, Brescia, Naples, Genoa, Monte Carlo and also at La Scala in Milan.  He played Cavaradossi in Puccini's Tosca at the Royal Opera House in London and took on the same role for his first American engagement in 1913. That same year Martinelli portrayed Pantagruel in the world premiere of Jules Massenet’s Panurge in Paris.  Read more…

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Ettore Boiardi - entrepreneur

Emilian immigrant who founded canned pasta brand

Ettore Boiardi, the former New York chef whose name lives on in the Chef Boyardee canned pasta products brand, was born on this day in 1897 in Piacenza, now part of the Emilia-Romagna region.  Boiardi, whose culinary skills first gained popularity when he was working in the kitchens of the iconic Plaza Hotel in New York, hit upon the idea of selling cook-at-home Italian food after opening his first restaurant while still in his 20s.  He and his brother, Paolo, built a company that employed 5,000 staff and filled 250,000 cans per day at its peak, making the Chef Boyardee brand a familiar sight in grocery stores across America.  They eventually sold the business for $6 million dollars in 1948 but the Chef Boyardee brand never went away. Today, Chef Boyardee products still carry Ettore Boiardi’s image on their packaging.  Read more…

Soave - an Italian classic wine

How the dry white from the Veneto earned its DOC status

Soave - at one time the world's most popular Italian wine - was officially granted a DOC classification on this day in 1968.  The DOC status - which stands for Denominazione di Origine Controllata - was introduced midway through the 20th century as part of a series of laws designed to safeguard the quality and authenticity of Italian wines.  Winegrowers had been pushing for such regulation because the increasing popularity of Italian wines around the world was impacting on quality as more and more producers sprang up to meet demand.  Soave was a case in point.  Originally limited to a small area of just 2,720 acres (1,100 hectares) in the hills to the north of the small towns of Soave and Monteforte d'Alpone, roughly 25km (16 miles) east of Verona in the Veneto region, production spread rapidly to an area more than six times as large.  Read more…

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Valeria Golino - actress

Neapolitan starred with Hoffman and Cruise in Rain Man

The actress Valeria Golino, who found international fame when she played opposite Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise in the hugely successful movie Rain Man, was born on this day in 1965 in Naples.  Golino was cast as the girlfriend of Tom Cruise’s character, Charlie Babbitt, in Barry Levinson’s comedy, in which Babbitt’s estranged father dies and leaves most of his multi-million dollar estate to another son, an autistic savant named Raymond (Dustin Hoffman) whose existence Charlie knew nothing about. The 1988 movie won four Oscars and grossed more than $350 dollars. Although Golino was not nominated for her performance in Rain Man, she has won a string of other awards over a career so far spanning almost 35 years.  She is one of only three stars to win Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival on two occasions. Read more…

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Roberto “Robertino” Loreti - singer and actor

Child prodigy who specialised in traditional Italian songs

The singer and actor Roberto Loreti, who performed under the stage name “Robertino”, was born on this day in 1946 in Rome.  Loreti, who sang live on Italian television earlier in 2022 at the age of 75, built popularity in many countries apart from Italy at his peak, his repertoire largely built on traditional Italian songs. He also appeared in acting roles in a number of films.  The fifth of eight children, he was only 10 years old when his father, Orlando, could not work for a long period because of illness. In order to help bring money into the household, Loreti had to give up school and find work.  He took a job as a delivery boy for a bakery which supplied pastries to restaurants. As he made his deliveries, he would amuse himself by singing folk songs.  The quality of his voice made an impression on people who heard him. Read more…

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Salvatore Di Vittorio – composer and conductor  

Musician has promoted his native Palermo throughout the world

Salvatore Di Vittorio, founding music director and conductor of the Chamber Orchestra of New York, was born on this day in 1967 in Palermo in Sicily.  Also a composer, Di Vittorio has written music in the style of the early 20th century Italian composer, Ottorino Respighi, who, in turn, based his compositions on the music he admired from the 16th and 17th centuries.  Di Vittorio has been recognised by music critics as respectful of the ancient Italian musical tradition and also as an emerging, leading interpreter of the music of Ottorino Respighi.  He began studying music when he was a child with his father, Giuseppe, who introduced him to the operas of Verdi and Puccini. He went on to study composition at the Manhattan School of Music and Philosophy at Columbia University.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: A History of Opera: The Last Four Hundred Years, by Carolyn Abbate and Roger Parker

Why has opera transfixed and fascinated audiences for centuries? Carolyn Abbate and Roger Parker answer this question in their scrupulous and provocative retelling of the history of opera, examining its development, the means by which it communicates, and its societal role. Published in 2015 as the first full new history of opera in 60 years, this is an updated second edition of A History of Opera with an expanded examination of opera as an institution in the 21st century,  this book explores the tensions that have sustained opera over 400 years: between words and music, character and singer, inattention and absorption. Abbate and Parker argue that, though the genre's most popular and enduring works were almost all written in a distant European past, opera continues to transform the viewer with its enduring power.

Carolyn Abbate is Professor of Music at Harvard University and the author of Unsung Voices and In Search of Opera. Roger Parker is Professor of Music at King's College, London, and the author of Leonora's Last Act and Remaking the Song. He is founding co-editor of the Donizetti critical edition, and editor of The Oxford Illustrated History of Opera.

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21 October

NEW - Edmondo De Amicis - writer and journalist

Author whose most famous work became a staple text in Italian schools

The writer, journalist and former soldier Edmondo De Amicis, famous as the author of Cuore, his imagined diary of a schoolboy in Turin, was born on this day in 1846 in Oneglia, now part of modern Imperia in Liguria.  Through its daily diary entries by the book’s central character, Enrico, interspersed with uplifting stories told by one of his teachers, Cuore - published for the first time in 1886 - came to be seen as something of a moral compass for young people growing up in post-unification Italy.  At a time when the newly-formed Italian State was keen to impose its authority over a Catholic Church that had vehemently opposed unification and still refused to recognise the Kingdom of Italy, Cuore’s emphasis on values such as patriotism, compassion, diligence, and respect for authority, resonated deeply with the new secular government.  Read more…

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Prince Amedeo, Duke of Aosta

Cousin of Italy's wartime monarch died in a POW camp

Prince Amedeo, Duke of Aosta, who died in a British prisoner-of-war camp after leading the defeated Italian Army in the East Africa Campaign of the Second World War, was born on this day in 1898 in Turin.  After distinguished military service in the First World War and seeing action as a pilot in the pacification of Italian Libya in the early 1930s, Amedeo had been appointed by Mussolini as Viceroy of Ethiopia and Governor-General of Italian East Africa in 1937, replacing the controversial Marshal Rodolfo Graziani.  Italy’s entry into the Second World War on the side of Germany in June 1940 meant the Duke of Aosta became the commander of the Italian forces against the British in what became known as the East African Campaign.  As such, he oversaw the Italian advances into the Sudan and Kenya and the Italian invasion of British Somaliland.  Read more…

Giuseppe Pinelli - anarchist

His 'accidental death' inspired classic Dario Fo play

Giuseppe 'Pino' Pinelli, the railway worker from Milan who inspired Dario Fo to write his classic play, Accidental Death of an Anarchist, was born on this day in 1928.  Pinelli fell to his death from a fourth floor window of the Milan Questura - the main police station - on December 15, 1969, three days after a bomb exploded at a bank in Piazza Fontana in Milan, killing 17 people and wounding 88.  A known anarchist during a period of growing political and social tension in Italy, Pinelli had been picked up for questioning, along with a number of other activists, over the Piazza Fontana bomb.  The story put out first by police was that Pinelli had jumped, willing to take his own life rather than face prosecution. Yet three police officers who had been interrogating Pinelli were put under investigation.  Read more… 

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Domenichino - Baroque master

Artist whose talents rivalled Raphael

The painter Domenico Zampieri, in his era spoken of in the same breath as Raphael, was born on this day in 1581 in Bologna.  Better known as Domenichino (“Little Domenico”), the nickname he picked up early in his career on account of his small stature, he painted in classical and later Baroque styles in Rome, Bologna and Naples.  Noted for the subtle, almost serene lighting and understated colours of his compositions, he painted portraits, landscapes, religious and mythological scenes and had a prolific output. Among his most notable works were significant frescoes commissioned by Cardinal Alessandro Farnese for the Badia (monastery) at Grottaferrata, outside Rome, and for Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini at the Villa Belvedere (also known as the Villa Aldobrandini) in nearby Frascati, as well as Scenes from the Life of Saint Cecilia at the church of San Luigi dei Francesi in Rome. Read more…

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Book of the Day: Cuore: An Italian Schoolboy’s Journal, by Edmondo De Amicis. Translated by Isabel Hapgood 

Cuore is a novel written by the Italian author Edmondo De Amicis who was a novelist, journalist, writer and poet. The novel is his best known work to this day, having been inspired by his own children Furio and Ugo who had been schoolboys at the time. It is set during the Italian unification, and includes several patriotic themes. It was issued by Treves on October 18, 1886, the first day of school in Italy, and rose to immediate success.  Presented in the form of a diary, its subject is a young boy's life in Turin. This is an edition of Isabel Hapgood’s translation into English, first published more than 100 years ago.

Isabel Florence Hapgood, who died in 1928, was an American ecumenist, writer, and translator, especially of Russian and French texts.

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Edmondo De Amicis - writer and journalist

Author whose most famous work became a staple text in Italian schools

Edmondo De Amicis's first writing
drew on his service in the Italian Army

The writer, journalist and former soldier Edmondo De Amicis, famous as the author of Cuore, his imagined diary of a schoolboy in Turin, was born on this day in 1846 in Oneglia, now part of modern Imperia in Liguria.

Through its daily diary entries by the book’s central character, Enrico, interspersed with uplifting stories told by one of his teachers, Cuore - published for the first time in 1886 - came to be seen as something of a moral compass for young people growing up in post-unification Italy.

At a time when the newly-formed Italian State was keen to impose its authority over a Catholic Church that had vehemently opposed unification and still refused to recognise the new Kingdom of Italy, Cuore’s emphasis on values such as patriotism, compassion, diligence, and respect for authority, resonated deeply with the new secular government, reflecting exactly the moral and civic ideals it wished to be at the heart of society.

It became a staple in Italian public schools, remaining so for the best part of a century. Moreover, its appeal extended well beyond the borders of the fledgling Italian nation and was adapted and translated into at least 25 languages, earning De Amicis international acclaim.

Although Cuore - Heart - was by some way the biggest success of his literary career, De Amicis also won praise for the travel books he wrote while working as a foreign correspondent for the Rome newspaper La Nazione. 

One of these - Constantinople (1877) - was seen as the best description of the Turkish city now known as Istanbul to be published in the 19th century. A new edition of the book was published in 2005.

In addition to Cuore, De Amicis, who was a member of Italy’s Chamber of Deputies for the Italian Socialist Party between 1906 and his death in 1908, wrote a number of later novels that reflected his interest in such matters as social reform, education, and workers’ rights.

De Amicis himself had been born into a wealthy family. His father, Francescso, was a royal banker in the salt and tobacco sector. His original home in Oneglia and the one to which the family moved in Cuneo, Piedmont, when he was two years old, were both spacious and elegant properties.

Cuore became staple reading for
generations of Italian schoolchildren

Growing up in Cuneo, he initially looked destined for a military career. After studying at the Candellero military college in Turin, he enrolled at the Military Academy of Modena at age 16, graduating with the rank of second lieutenant.

This experience, shaped as it was by Italy’s turbulent path towards unification, profoundly influenced his destiny. As an officer in the Royal Italian Army, he participated in the Third War of Independence and fought in the Battle of Custoza in 1866. Italy’s defeat by Austria left De Amicis deeply disillusioned, leading him to resign from military service and turn to writing.

At first, it was as a military journalist, moving to Florence to edit L'Italia militare, the official publication, for whom he wrote military sketches, later collected in a book entitled La vita militare - Military Life. His vivid portrayals of army life were well received and became the launch pad for his new career. 

De Amicis soon became a news journalist and travel writer, journeying across Europe, North Africa, and the Near East. Travel books such as Spagna (1873), Olanda (1874), and the aforementioned Costantinopoli (1878) were celebrated for their rich descriptions and cultural insights, blending reportage with literary flair.

It was Cuore, however, that was the turning point of his literary life. Its themes promoted a strong sense of national identity, emphasising loyalty to Italy, respect for its institutions and admiration for its heroes, especially those who made the ultimate sacrifice on the battlefield. 

The stories told by young Enrico’s teacher, meanwhile, taught virtues such as honesty, courage, humility and compassion, while often featuring children from different regions of Italy, reinforcing unity through shared values.

De Amicis entered Italian politics
towards the end of his life

The book caused some controversy, too, by making no reference to religion. The nuns, priests or other religious mentors that featured in other moral tales were conspicuous by their absence. This upset the Catholic Church, already reeling from the capture of the Papal States and Rome in 1870, which completed unification and reduced the pope to a mere spiritual leader, having previously been effectively the monarch of his domain.

De Amicis ultimately returned to Piedmont, with homes in Turin and Pinerolo. It was the school life of his sons Furio and Ugo, students at the Boncompagni Elementary School in Turin, that inspired him to write Cuore. 

His last years were overshadowed by sadness, at the death of his mother, his fractious relationship with his wife and ultimately the suicide of Furio, his eldest son. It prompted him to leave Turin soon after the turn of the century, thereafter leading a nomadic existence that included time in Florence and Catania, in Sicily.

He died during a stay in Bordighera, in Liguria, where he suffered a cerebral haemorrhage while resident at the then Hotel Regina, which he had chosen as his base because George MacDonald, a Scottish poet he admired, had lived there a few years earlier. The building, at Via Vittorio Veneto 34, has commemorative plaques to them both. 

De Amicis was laid to rest in the family tomb, in the monumental cemetery of Turin.

Piazza Dante is a the central square in the part 
of Imperia that makes up the former Oneglia

Travel tip:

Oneglia, where De Amicis was born, was a town about 120km (75 miles) from Genoa along the western coast of Liguria. It was joined to Porto Maurizio in 1923 by Fascist ruler Benito Mussolini to form the municipality known as Imperia. The area has become well known for cultivating flowers and olives and there is a Museum of the Olive in the part of the city that used to be Oneglia. One of Italy’s most famous olive oil producers and connoisseurs, Filippo Berio, was born in Oneglia in 1829.  The Porto Maurizio area is characterised by steep, narrow streets and loggias with an elevated position offering views across the Ligurian Sea, while the Oneglia part of Imperia is on the whole a modern town, one exception being the streets behind the Calata Cuneo in the port area. Today, Imperia is part industrial port and part tourist resort.  What used to be Oneglia is at the eastern end of Imperia, around Piazza Dante, which is at the centre of a long shopping street, Via Aurelia.

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Picturesque side streets are part
of the charm of Bordighera

Travel tip:

Bordighera, where De Amicis died, is a small, picturesque town on Italy’s western Riviera, just 20km (12 miles) from Italy’s border with France. It is famous for its flower industry and was a popular holiday destination for the British during Queen Victoria’s reign. Being situated where the Maritime Alps meet the sea, it enjoys the benefit of a climate that invariably produces mild winters. It was the first town in Europe to grow date palms. Its seafront road, the Lungomare Argentina - named in honour of a visit to the town by Evita Peron in 1947 - is 2.3km (1.4 miles) long and is said to be the longest promenade on the Italian Riviera. Queen Margherita of Savoy - wife of Umberto I - had a winter palace, Villa Margherita, in the town.  Bordighera was the scene of a meeting in 1941 between Italy’s Fascist leader, Benito Mussolini, and his Spanish counterpart, Francisco Franco, to discuss Spain’s entry to World War Two on the side of Italy and Germany, although in the end Spain remained nominally neutral.

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More reading:

Maria Montessori and the launch of what became a worldwide network of schools

How the first free public school in Europe opened in Frascati, just outside Rome

A soldier-turned-writer who fought alongside unification hero Garibaldi

Also on this day:

1581: The birth of Baroque master Domenichino 

1898: The birth of Prince Amedeo, Duke of Aosta

1928: The birth of anarchist Giuseppe Pinelli, inspiration for Dario Fo play

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20 October

Claudio Ranieri - football manager

Title-winning former Leicester City boss 

Football manager Claudio Ranieri was born on this day in 1951 in Rome.  Ranieri, who won the English Premier League in 2016 with rank outsiders Leicester City, managed 18 clubs in four countries in a 39-year career in coaching, three of them more than once, before announcing his retirement in 2025.  He also had a stint in charge of the Greece national team.  Among the teams he has coached are a host of big names - Internazionale, Juventus, Roma, Napoli and Fiorentina in Italy, Atletico Madrid and Valencia in Spain, Monaco in France and Chelsea in England.  He has won titles in lower divisions as well as Italy's Coppa Italia and the Copa del Rey in Spain but until Leicester defied pre-season odds of 5,000-1 to win the Premier League, a major league championship had eluded him.  He had finished second three times, with Chelsea, Roma and Monaco.  Read more…

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Dado Moroni - jazz musician

Self-taught pianist recorded first album at 17

The renowned jazz musician Edgardo ‘Dado’ Moroni was born on this day in 1962 in Genoa.  Moroni, who learned at the feet of some of the greats of American jazz music in Italian clubs in the 1980s and 90s, has recorded more than 25 albums, having released his first when he was only 17.  He has appeared as a guest on many more albums and built such a reputation as a pianist and composer that he was able to become part of the American jazz scene himself in the 1990s, when he lived in New York.  Moroni attributes his love of jazz music to his father’s passion for the genre, which meant that he grew up listening to the likes of Earl Hines, Fats Waller and Count Basie.  Using a piano his parents had bought for his sister, Monica, he taught himself to play many of the songs he heard on the record player, receiving his first tuition from his mother, who played the accordion.  Read more…

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Jacopo della Quercia - sculptor

Innovative work said to have influenced Michelangelo

The sculptor Jacopo della Quercia, regarded as one of the most original artists in his field in the early 15th century and an influence on a number of leading figures in the Renaissance including Michelangelo, died on this day in 1438. Della Quercia’s most notable works include the Fonte Gaia in Piazza del Campo in Siena, the sculptures around the Porta Magna of the church of San Petronio in Bologna, the tomb of Ilaria del Carretto in Lucca Cathedral, and Zacharias in the Temple, a bronze relief for the baptismal font in the church of San Giovanni in Siena.  His attention to proportion and perspective gave his creations a particularly lifelike quality and his innovative work put him at the forefront of his generation.  Art historians consider that his work marked a transition in Italian art from Gothic to Renaissance style that was taken forward by Michelangelo and others. Read more…

Mara Venier - television presenter

Former actress became famous as face of Sunday afternoon

Mara Venier, a familiar face on Italian television for more than 40 years, was born on this day in 1950 in Venice.  The former actress, who made her big-screen debut in 1973, is best known for presenting the long-running Sunday afternoon variety show Domenica In, which has been a fixture on the public TV channel Rai Uno since 1976.  Venier, born Mara Povoleri, has hosted the show for 17 seasons in five stints between 1993 and 2025, overtaking Pippo Baudo, something of a legendary figure in Italian television, as its longest-serving presenter.  Fronting Domenica In, which used to be on air for an incredible six hours, was not only a test of stamina for the presenter but a patriotic duty, the show’s format having been conceived by the Italian government, faced with the global oil crisis in the 1970s, as a way to tempt citizens to stay at home rather than use precious fuel for their cars.  Read more…

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Bianca Cappello – noblewoman

Tragic end for the mistress who earned promotion to Grand Duchess 

Bianca Cappello, the mistress of Francesco I Grand Duke of Tuscany, who became his Grand Duchess after he married her in the face of widespread criticism, died on this day in 1587 in Poggio a Caiano.  Grand Duchess Bianca died just one day after her husband, and historians are still divided between the theories that either they were both poisoned, or that they each died of malarial fever.  Bianca had been born in Venice in 1548, the only daughter of a Venetian nobleman. As she grew up, she was acknowledged to be a great beauty.  At the age of 15, Bianca fell in love with a young Florentine clerk and she eloped with him to Florence, where they were married. She gave birth to a daughter one year later.  The Venetian government tried to have Bianca arrested and brought back to Venice, but Cosimo I, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, intervened on her behalf.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Hail, Claudio!: The Man, the Manager, the Miracle, by Gabriele Marcotti and Alberto Polverosi

Leicester City's Premier League victory was the 5,000-1 triumph that delighted the world.  But how did Claudio Ranieri pull off one of the greatest achievements in sport?  This is the inside story of the rise and rise of the butcher’s son from Rome, whose hard work, passion for the game and ability to learn from his mistakes have earned him the respect of players, fans and owners worldwide.  Gabriele Marcotti and Alberto Polverosi have known Claudio Ranieri since his early days as a professional footballer. They have closely followed his successes and his failures as he navigated the often topsy-turvy world of football and developed as a player and manager.  Hail, Claudio! takes an in-depth look into what sets Ranieri apart as a manager, into precisely how the Premier League was won, and what went wrong following that golden season.

London-based Gabriele Marcotti is a senior writer and analyst for ESPN, World Football Correspondent for The Times and UK correspondent for Corriere dello Sport. His previous books include The Italian Job: A Journey to the Heart of Two Great Footballing Cultures, co-authored with the late Gianluca Vialli, and Capello: Portrait of a Winner.  Alberto Polverosi, who lives in Florence, has been writing for Corriere dello Sport since 1977. 

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