9 November

Niccolò III d’Este – Marquis of Ferrara

Soldier who built up the importance of home city

The military leader - condottiero in Italian - Niccolò III d’Este was born on this day in 1383 in Ferrara.  He was the son of Alberto d’Este, Marquis of Ferrara, and became ruler of the city when he was just ten years old on the death of his father, under the protection of Venice, Florence and Bologna.  A relative, Azzo d’Este, who was working for Gian Galeazzo Visconti, Duke of Milan, tried to attack Ferrara, but Venice, Florence and Bologna helped Niccolò see off the challenge to his rule.  In 1403 Niccolò joined the league formed against the Duke of Milan and was appointed Captain General of the Papal Army by Pope Boniface IX.  At the age of 13, Niccolò was married for the first time, to Gigliola da Carrara, the daughter of Francesco II da Carrara, Lord of Padua.  Although his first marriage was childless, he fathered an illegitimate son, Ugo, in 1405.  Read more…

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Giuseppe Panini - entrepreneur

News vendor who started football sticker craze

Giuseppe Panini, the entrepreneur and businessman who created an international craze for collecting football stickers, was born on this day in 1921 in the village of Pozza in Emilia-Romagna, not far from Modena.  Since the stickers’ first appearance in Italy in the 1960s and the first World Cup sticker album in 1970 took the concept into an international marketplace, Panini has grown into a publishing company that in 2017 generated sales in excess of €536 million ($643 million US) in more than 120 countries, employing more than 1000 people worldwide.  Giuseppe Panini, who died in 1996, grew immensely wealthy as a result, selling the business in 1989 for a sum said to be around £96 million, the equivalent of £232 million (€266 million; $303 million US) today, after which he spent the remaining years of his life building on an already established reputation for philanthropy.  Read more…

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Alessandro Del Piero – World Cup winner

Former striker is all-time record goalscorer for Juventus

The retired footballer Alessandro Del Piero, who won the World Cup with Italy in 2006 and holds the club records for most goals (290) and most appearances (705) for Juventus, was born on this day in 1974 in Conegliano in the Veneto.  Regarded as one of Italy’s greatest players, his overall goals tally of 346 in Italian football in all competitions has been bettered only once in history, by Silvio Piola, who was a member of Italy’s winning team in the 1938 World Cup and who scored 390 goals in his career.  Del Piero also finished his career having scored at least one goal in every competition in which he took part.  Del Piero was a member of six Serie A title-winning Juventus teams between 1995 and 2012 and would have had eight winner’s medals had the club not been stripped of the 2005 and 2006 titles due to the so-called Calciopoli corruption scandal.  Read more…

The rebuilding of Cervia

Historic town is now a popular seaside resort

Pope Innocent XII, as Head of the Papal States, signed a document ordering the rebuilding of the town of Cervia in the Emilia-Romagna region, on this day in 1697.  It was the second time in its history that Cervia had been moved and rebuilt and therefore it has become known as ‘the town of three sites’.  Present day Cervia, in the province of Ravenna, is a popular seaside resort with a 9km (5.5 miles) stretch of sandy beaches along the Adriatic coast, about 30km (19 miles) north of Rimini. The town was originally known as Ficocle and was probably of Greek origin. It lay near the coast halfway between what is often referred to as New Cervia and the city of Ravenna.  However, the town of Ficocle was completely destroyed in 709 as punishment for being an ally of Ravenna and therefore against Byzantium. It was later rebuilt in a safer location.  Read more…

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Piero Cappuccilli - operatic baritone

Singer highly respected for interpretation of Verdi roles

Piero Cappuccilli, regarded during a 41-year opera career as one of the finest Italian baritones of the late 20th century, was born on this day in 1926 in Trieste, in the far northeast corner of the peninsula.  Although not exclusively, Cappuccilli’s focus was predominantly the work of Italian composers, in particular Giuseppe Verdi, in whose operas he sang 17 major roles.  He sang at many of the world’s great opera houses, travelling to South America and the United States, where he made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York as Giorgio Germont in Verdi’s La traviata in 1960 and had a particular association with the Lyric Opera in Chicago, where he made his first appearance in 1969 as Sir Richard Forth in Bellini's I puritani and returned many times before his farewell performances there in 1986.  Read more…

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Enrico De Nicola - politician

Italy’s ‘reluctant’ first president

The man who was to become the first president of the Republic of Italy was born on this day in Naples in 1877.  Enrico De Nicola studied law at Naples University and went on to become one of the most esteemed criminal lawyers in Italy. He also worked as a journalist writing about legal issues.  He later joined the Italian liberal party and was elected to the Camera dei Deputati (Chamber of Deputies) in 1909.  He held minor government posts until the advent of Fascism when he retired from public life to concentrate on his legal career.   De Nicola took an interest in politics again after Mussolini’s fall from power in 1943.  At first King Victor Emmanuel III tried to extricate the monarchy from its association with the Fascists and his son Umberto became Lieutenant General of the Realm and took over most of the functions of the Sovereign. Read more…

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Book of the Day: The Italian City Republics, by Trevor Dean and Daniel Waley

The Italian City Republics illustrates how, from the 11th century onwards, many Italian towns achieved independence as political entities, unhindered by any centralising power. Until the 14th century, when the regimes of individual ‘tyrants’ took over in most towns, these communes were the scene of a precocious, and very well-documented, experiment in republican self-government.  In this new edition, Trevor Dean has expanded the book’s treatment of women and gender, the early history of the communes and the lives of non-élites. Focusing on the typical medium-sized towns rather than the better-known cities, the authors draw on a rich variety of contemporary material, both documentary and literary, to portray the world of the communes, illustrating the patriotism and public spirit as well as the equally characteristic factional strife which was to tear them apart. Discussion of the artistic and social lives of the inhabitants shows how these towns were the seedbed of the cultural achievements of the early Renaissance. 

Trevor Dean is Emeritus Professor at Roehampton University in London. His first book was on the city of Ferrara and its rulers in the 14th-15th centuries. He has since written numerous books and studies on crime, policing and criminal justice in late medieval Italy. The late Daniel Waley was Professor of Medieval History at the London School of Economics until 1972, when he became Keeper of Manuscripts at the British Library until his retirement in 1986. 

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8 November

Andrea Appiani - painter

The master of the fresco technique became court painter to Napoleon

Neoclassical artist Andrea Appiani, who was chosen to paint for the Emperor Napoleon during the time in which he ruled Italy, died on this day in 1817 in Milan.  He is remembered for his fine portraits of some of the famous people of the period, including Napoleon, the Empress Joséphine, and the poet, Ugo Foscolo. He is also well regarded for his religious and classical frescoes.  Born in Milan in 1754, Appiani was intended for a career in medicine, to follow in his father’s footsteps, but he went into the private academy of the painter Carlo Maria Guidici instead, where he received instruction in drawing and copying from sculpture and paintings.  He then joined the class of the fresco painter Antonio de Giorgi at the Ambrosiana picture gallery in Milan and he spent time in the studio of Martin Knoller where he learnt more about painting in oils.  Read more…

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Sandro Mazzola - footballer

Tragedy instilled determination to succeed

The footballer Sandro Mazzola, widely regarded as one of Italy’s greatest players after a glittering career with Internazionale of Milan and the Italian national team, was born on this day in 1942 in Turin.  A forward or attacking midfield player with all the attributes of the world’s best players, Mazzola won four Serie A titles and two European Cups for Inter-Milan, largely under the coaching of Helenio Herrero. His goals tally in Serie A games alone was 116 in 417 appearances. He was capped 70 times by the national team, part of the side that won the 1968 European championships and reached the World Cup final in 1970.  Mazzola always saw his success as a tribute to his father, Valentino, a brilliant player who was captain of the Torino team that was almost entirely wiped out in the Superga air disaster of 1949. Read more…  

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Salvatore Cascio - actor

Child star of classic movie Cinema Paradiso

The actor Salvatore Cascio, who earned fame through his starring role in the Oscar-winning movie Cinema Paradiso, was born on this day in 1979 in Palazzo Adriano, a small town in a mountainous area of western Sicily.  In Guiseppe Tornatore’s nostalgic 1988 drama, Cascio was the eight-year-old child chosen to play the part of the the film’s central character as a small boy in a Sicilian village who loves to watch films at his local cinema and develops a friendship with the cinema’s grumpy but good-hearted projectionist, Alfredo.  His performance was so charming and captivating it won him the prize for best actor in a supporting role at the 1990 BAFTAs. He remains the only Italian to have won such an award. Roberto Benigni, star and director of the 1997 film Life is Beautiful, is the only Italian to have won a BAFTA as best actor.  Read more…

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Francesco Molinari – golfer

Second win in Italian Open gave him unique status

Francesco Molinari, one of two golfing brothers who have advanced the cause of the sport in Italy more than anyone in the modern era, was born on this day in 1982 in Turin.  He and Edoardo, who is 21 months’ his senior, won the Mission Hills World Cup in China in 2009, the first time Italy had won the two-player team event.  And when he sank a 5ft (1.5m) putt to beat the Masters champion Danny Willett to win the Italian Open in Monza in September 2016, Francesco became the first Italian to win his country’s open championship twice since it became part of the European tour in 1972.  He had won it for the first time in 2006 at the Castello di Tolcinasco course just outside Milan, which gave him his first European tour victory at the age of 23 and made him the first Italian to win the tournament since Massimo Mannelli in 1980.  Read more…

Virna Lisi - actress

Screen siren turned back on glamour roles to prove talent

The actress Virna Lisi, born on this day in 1936, might have become the new Marilyn Monroe if she had allowed Hollywood to shape her career in the way the movie moguls had planned.  She was certainly blessed with all the physical attributes to fulfil their commercial ambitions - no less a screen goddess than Brigitte Bardot called her 'the most beautiful woman in the world' - but decided she was too good an actress to be typecast as mere window dressing or eye candy and ultimately rejected their advances.  In time she proved to herself that she made the right decision when her portrayal of the manipulative Catherine de' Medici, the Italian who was Queen of France between 1547 and 1559, in Patrice Chéreau’s 1994 film La Reine Margot won her three awards - Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival, a César (the French equivalent of an Oscar) and the Italian film critics' award, the Nastro d'Argento (Silver Ribbon).  Read more…

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Francis I of the Two Sicilies

Death of the king who failed to impress Lady Blessington 

Francis I died in Naples on this day in 1830 after having been King of the Two Sicilies for five years.  The Two Sicilies was the largest of all the Italian states before unification, originally formed as a union between the Kingdom of Sicily and the Kingdom of Naples.  It lasted until 1860 when it was annexed by the Kingdom of Sardinia, which became Italy in 1861.  The Two Sicilies originated when the Kingdom of Sicily was divided in 1283. The King at the time lost the island of Sicily but kept control of his part of southern Italy, which was also referred to as Sicily. The Two Sicilies had capitals in Palermo and Naples.  After Francis succeeded his father Ferdinand I in 1825 he took little part in government and lived with his mistresses in constant fear of assassination.  He is remembered for getting the Austrian occupation force removed from Naples. Read more…

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Paolo Taviani - film director

Half of a successful partnership with brother Vittorio

The film director Paolo Taviani, the younger of the two Taviani brothers, whose work together won great acclaim and brought them considerable success in the 1970s and 80s in particular, was born on this day in 1931 in San Miniato, Tuscany.  With his brother Vittorio, who was two years his senior and died in April of this year, he wrote and directed more than 20 films.  Among their triumphs were Padre Padrone (1977), which won the Palme d’Or and the International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI) prize at the Cannes Film Festival, La notte di San Lorenzo (The Night of the Shooting Stars) 1982, which won the Grand Prix du Jury at Cannes, and Caesar Must Die (2012), which won the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival.  The brothers famously would work in partnership, directing alternate scenes. Read more…

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Book of the Day: Europe Under Napoleon, by Michael Broers

Napoleon Bonaparte dominated the public life of Europe like no other individual before him. Not surprisingly, the story of the man himself has usually swamped the stories of his subjects. This book looks at the history of the Napoleonic Empire from an entirely new perspective- that of the ruled rather than the ruler. Michael Broers concentrates on the experience of the people of Europe - particularly the vast majority of Napoleon's subjects who were neither French, nor willing participants in the great events of the period - during the dynamic but short-lived career of Napoleon, when half the European continent fell under his rule. In a new edition of his highly acclaimed Europe Under Napoleon, Broers weaves together a myriad of regional experiences to produce a social history of the Napoleonic Empire with a truly panoramic scope.

Michael Broers is Professor of Western European History at the University of Oxford, UK. He is the author of several books about revolutionary and Napoleonic Europe, including the two-volume biography Napoleon (2014 and 2018); Napoleon's Other War: Bandits, Rebels and their Pursuers in the Age of Revolutions (2010); and The Napoleonic Empire in Italy, 1796-1814 (2005).

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7 November

NEW - Antonella Bellutti - cycling champion

Versatile athlete who excelled in several sports

Olympic cycling champion Antonella Bellutti, one of Italy’s most versatile and pioneering athletes, was born on this day in 1968 in Bolzano, the principal city of Trentino-Alto Adige, also known as Südtirol.  At the peak of her track cycling career, Bellutti won Olympic gold medals in the individual pursuit at the Atlanta Games of 1996 and in the points race at the Sydney Games four years later.  She was also a medallist in pursuit at the 1996 and 1995 world championships and won gold in the omnium at the 1998 European championships in Berlin.  Yet her cycling career may well not have happened but for a knee injury that curtailed her career as a track and field athlete. As a teenager, she had excelled as a hurdler and in combined events such as heptathlon, winning seven youth titles and setting the Italian junior record at 100m hurdles.  Read more… 

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Niccolò Machiavelli - statesman and diplomat

Dismissal gave public servant time to write about his ruthless ideas

Statesman and diplomat Niccolò Machiavelli, whose name has become synonymous with the words "cunning" and "duplicity", was dismissed from office in Florence on this day in 1512 by a written decree issued by the Medici rulers.  Machiavelli was forced to withdraw from public life and retired to his home in the Chianti region of Tuscany, where he wrote his most famous work, The Prince, which was to give the world the political idea of ‘the ends justify the means’.  Had the Medici not distrusted him, Machiavelli might have continued to serve in Florence as a diplomat and military leader.  He may never have passed on to mankind the ideas he had learnt from his work during the turbulent period in Italian history when popes and other European countries were battling against Italy’s city states for power.  Read more…

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Luigi Riva - an Azzurri great

Italy's record goalscorer and hero of Cagliari

Luigi 'Gigi' Riva, who was born on this day in 1944, is widely regarded as one of the finest strikers in the history of Italian football.  Despite playing in an era when football in Italy was notoriously defensive, he scored more than 200 goals in a 16-year club career, 156 of them in Serie A for Cagliari, with whom he won the scudetto (shield) as Italian League champions in 1970.  Nicknamed "Rombo di tuono" - thunderclap - by the football writer Gianni Brera, Riva is also the all-time leading goalscorer for the Italian national team with 35 goals, his record having stood since 1974.  After his playing career, Riva spent 23 years as part of the management team for the Azzurri and was a key member of the backroom staff when Italy won the World Cup for a fourth time in 2006.  Born in Lombardy, not far from Lake Maggiore, Riva spent virtually his whole football career with Cagliari and made his home in Sardinia.  Read more…

Gaspare Tagliacozzi - surgeon

Professor invented rhinoplasty procedure

Pioneering plastic surgeon Gaspare Tagliacozzi died on this day in 1599 in Bologna.  During his career, Tagliacozzi had developed what became known as ‘the Italian method’ for nasal reconstruction.  He improved on the procedure that had been carried out by the 15th century Sicilian surgeons, Gustavo Branca, and his son, Antonio.  Tagliacozzi wrote a book, De Curtorum Chirugia per Insitionem - On the Surgery of Mutilation by Grafting - which described in great detail the procedures carried out in the past to repair noses amputated during battle.  Surgeons who came after him credit him with single-handedly revolutionising the procedure and inventing what is today referred to as a rhinoplasty procedure.  Tagliacozzi was born in Bologna in 1545. He studied medicine, natural sciences and anatomy at the University of Bologna.  Read more…

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Feast day of Ercolano – patron saint of Perugia

Bishop was martyred after trying to save city

Today sees the Umbrian city of Perugia celebrate one of the two annual feast days of its patron saint, Ercolano, who according to legend was martyred on this day in 549 at the hands of the Ostrogoths, who ruled much of Italy at that time and had placed the city under siege.  Herculanus, as he is also known, was the Bishop of Perugia and as such was charged with trying to bring comfort to his flock in the face of inevitable capture by the Ostrogoths, the tribe, thought to have originated in Scandinavia, which had swept into Italy at the beginning of the sixth century.  They had a large, well-equipped army – more powerful than the army Perugia possessed, although it had enough soldiers to deter an advance – and the Ostrogoth leader, Totila, was prepared to wait outside the walls of the city for as long as it would take to starve the population into surrender.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Sport Italia: The Italian Love Affair with Sport, by Simon Martin

The Italian love affair with sport is passionate, voracious, all-consuming. It provides a backdrop and a narrative to almost every aspect of daily life in Italy and the distinctively pink-coloured newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport is devoured by almost half a million readers every day. Narrating the history of modern Italy through its national passion for sport, Sport Italia provides a completely new portrayal of one of Europe's most alluring, yet contradictory countries, tracing the highs and lows of Italy's sporting history from its Liberal pioneers through Mussolini and the 1960 Rome Olympics to the Berlusconi era. By interweaving essential themes of Italian history, its politics, society and economy with a history of the passion for sport in the country, Simon Martin tells the story of modern Italy in a fresh and colourful way, illustrating how and why sport is so strongly embedded in both politics and society, and how it is inseparable from the concept of Italian national identity. Showing sport's capacity to both unite and deeply divide, this fascinating book reveals a novel and previously unexplored element of the history of a society and its state.  Winner of the Lord Aberdare Literary Prize for Sports History in 2012.

Simon Martin is the author of Football and Fascism: The National Game under Mussolini, which won the Lord Aberdare Prize in 2004. He holds a PhD from University College, London and has taught there, as well as at the University of Hertfordshire, the University of California, Rome programme, the New York University in Florence and the American University of Rome.

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Antonella Bellutti - cycling champion

Versatile athlete who excelled in several sports

Antonella Bellutti celebrates after winning her
second Olympic Gold medal in Sydney in 2000

Olympic cycling champion Antonella Bellutti, one of Italy’s most versatile and pioneering athletes, was born on this day in 1968 in Bolzano, the principal city of Trentino-Alto Adige, also known as Südtirol.

At the peak of her track cycling career, Bellutti won Olympic gold medals in the individual pursuit at the Atlanta Games of 1996 and in the points race at the Sydney Games four years later.  She was also a medallist in pursuit at the 1996 and 1995 world championships and won gold in the omnium at the 1998 European championships in Berlin.

Yet her cycling career may well not have happened but for a knee injury that curtailed her career as a track and field athlete. As a teenager, she had excelled as a hurdler and in combined events such as heptathlon, winning seven youth titles and setting the Italian junior record at 100m hurdles.

She was preparing to make her Olympic hurdling debut in Barcelona in 1992 when the injury occurred. She took up cycling as part of what initially began as a rehabilitation process. In the event was never able to resume her career as a track athlete, yet revealed such talent on wheels that it opened a path to a whole new career.

As further evidence of Bellutti’s all-round sporting prowess, since retiring from competition as a cyclist she has returned to Olympic competition in bobsleigh, agreeing to be brakewoman to former luge gold medallist Gerda Weissensteiner - another native of Bolzano - as they finished seventh in the women’s two-man bob at the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City.

Unlike many athletes, Bellutti did not emerge from a sporting family. Her father had been a factory worker whose passion was organ music and while her brother was a cyclist and her sister played basketball, neither continued beyond their teenage years. It was a gym teacher at elementary school who noticed in her a natural athleticism and introduced her to her first coach.

At Salt Lake City, Bellutti teamed up
with Gerda Weissensteiner in the bob

After her success as a junior, the injury to her knee - a persistent pain and weakness even after being treated for a suspected cyst - came as a blow. Yet cycling came as naturally to her as running and jumping. By chance, out on a recreational ride, she overtook two executives from a local cycling club in Bolzano, who then pursued her until she stopped at a drinking fountain and invited her to join.

Her rise in cycling was meteoric. Just four years after taking up the sport, she won a silver medal in the individual pursuit at the 1995 UCI Track Cycling World Championships in Bogotá.  She followed this with a bronze medal in the same event at the 1996 World Championships in Manchester. 

The key to reaching the next level was her decision to adopted the so-called “Superman” riding position pioneered by the Scottish cyclist  Graeme Obree, which allowed for greater aerodynamic efficiency and helped her break the world record twice in the lead-up to the 1996 Olympics.

In 1996 in Atlanta, Bellutti delivered a commanding performance in the individual pursuit, winning gold and becoming the first Italian woman to do so in track cycling.

Four years later, at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, she returned to the velodrome and added a second Olympic gold, this time in the points race.

Antonella Bellutti has become
an advocate of the vegan lifestyle 

Beyond the Olympics. Bellutti won 13 World Cup races, 16 Italian national titles, and a European Championship gold in 1997. 

Since retiring from competition, Bellutti has remained deeply involved in sport. She served on the Italian National Olympic Committee (CONI) from 2000 to 2004 and was Technical Director of Italy’s national track cycling teams from 2002 to 2003. 

She has also worked in sports education and sports journalism, writing a column for the Gazzettino di Venezia for six years and often contributing to TV and radio broadcasts.  She published a book, La vita è come andare in bicicletta - Life is like riding a bicycle - in 2017, which among other things outlined her reasons for taking up a vegan diet. 

For a while, she ran a bed-and-breakfast offering a vegan menu in Andogno, a tiny hamlet of the municipality of San Lorenzo Dorsino in the Adamello Brenta Natural Park, about 30km (19 miles) west of Trento and 30km north of Riva del Garda.

The business was opened after Bellutti had restored a former inn she had inherited from her great-grandparents. Unfortunately, it was forced to close because of the Covid-19 pandemic. 

Today, Bellutti lives in Rovereto, in another part of the Trentino-Alto Adige region, and continues to inspire as a speaker, consultant, and advocate for equality in sport. She has taken a strong position in her opposition to doping in sport and has also spoken about depression among athletes and former athletes, having herself faced some mental health challenges following retirement. 

She still leads an active lifestyle, listing cycling, running, mountain climbing and alpine skiing among her activities, yet participates now solely for enjoyment rather than to compete. 

Bolzano's main square, Piazza Walther, was named
after medieval poet Walther von der Vogelweide

Travel tip:

Bolzano, Antonella Bellutti’s home town, is the capital of the South Tyrol region of what is now northern Italy, also known as Trentino-Alto Adige in Italian, or Südtirol in Austrian.  Occupying a valley flanked by hills covered in lush vineyards, it has a population of 108,000, swelling to 250,000 with all the surrounding communities. One of the largest urban areas in the Alpine region, it has a medieval city centre famous for its wooden market stalls, selling among other things Alpine cheeses, hams and bread. Places of interest include the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology, the imposing 13th-century Mareccio Castle, and the Duomo di Bolzano with its Romanesque and Gothic architecture. Other places of interest include Piazza Walther (Waltherplatz), the central square named after medieval poet Walther von der Vogelweide, and the Via dei Portici (Laubengasse), and historic shopping street lined with arcaded walkways. Three languages - Italian, German and a local language called Ladin - are spoken in the area, which consistently polls high among the Italian cities reckoned to have the best standard of living.  The nearest airport to Bolzano is at Verona, about 150km (93 miles) to the south and accessible in approximately an hour and a half by train, although some visitors arrive from Innsbruck in Austria, just over two hours by train in the opposite direction.

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A sweeping panorama over the city of Rovereto in
the Trentino-Alto Adige region, close to Lake Garda

Travel tip:

The picturesque small city of Rovereto, 23km (14 miles) east of Riva del Garda and about 28km (17 miles) south of Trento, is notable for its Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Trento and Rovereto - one of Italy’s most important modern art museums - as well as for a 14th century castle, which contains the Italian War Museum, and for the Maria Dolens (Mary Grieving) bell, also known as the Campana dei Caduti (the Bell of the Fallen) and the Bell of Peace. The second largest swinging bell in the world, it was originally the idea of a local priest, Father Antonio Rossaro, to honour the fallen of all wars and to invoke peace and brotherhood. Cast in 1924, since 1965 it has been located on Miravale Hill outside the town and sounds 100 times at nightfall each evening.  Nestled in the Vallagarina valley, it was originally a Roman outpost guarding trade routes to the Brenner Pass. It enjoyed substantial growth during the medieval and Renaissance eras, flourishing under Venetian rule and later the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Rovereto is part of the Marzemino wine region, known for its deep red varietals praised by Mozart.

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More reading:

How Trebisonda ‘Ondina’ Valla became the first Italian woman to win an Olympic gold medal 

The brilliance of high jumper Sara Simeoni

The bobsleigh champion honoured for sportsmanship

Also on this day:

549: Death of Saint Ercolano of Perugia

1512: Dismissal from office of statesman and diplomat Niccolò Machiavelli

1599: The death of pioneer surgeon Gaspara Tagliacozzi

1944: The birth of footballer Luigi ‘Gigi’ Riva

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