Anna Possi - bar owner

Centenarian still serving coffee 365 days a year

Anna Possi has been serving her customers at
the Bar Centrale in Nebbiuno for 67 years 

Anna Possi, the bar owner who in 2024 attracted the world’s media to her door when she celebrated her 100th birthday by opening for business as usual, was born on this day in 1924 in Vezzo in Piedmont.

Possi owns and manages the Bar Centrale in Nebbiuno, a village overlooking picturesque Lago Maggiore just a few kilometres from her place of birth. She has been brewing and serving coffee to visitors and regular customers there since the bar opened on May 1, 1958, and has been in sole charge since her husband, Renato, died in 1974.

She is known as the oldest bartender in Italy - perhaps in Europe - and proudly advertises her status with a sign on the wall outside the bar’s entrance on Via Torino, which reads “Qui si trova la barista più longeva d'Italia” - “Here you will find the longest-serving bartender in Italy”.

Opening even on Easter Sunday and Christmas Day, she wakes at 5.50am, eats a light breakfast while catching up with the news on the internet, and raises the shutters at 7am to be ready for her earliest customers, remaining open until 7-7.30pm.

On warm, summer evenings, she will stay open as late as 9.30pm, allowing her clientele to enjoy the splendid views across the lake on offer from her garden tables.

To mark her 100th birthday, she was awarded the honorary title of Commander of the Republic of Italy, yet has no plans to retire as long as she retains the gift of good health. She looks after her wellbeing by eating sparsely, taking a half-hour walk every evening and believes that her daily interaction with customers is the key to her sprightliness.

Universally known among her regular customers as Nonna Anna - or Anna Renè after her late husband - she makes few concessions to her advancing years apart from accepting some help from her daughter, Cristina, who lives with her in the rooms above the bar and works by day across the road at the local Municipale, the council offices.

Anna's unique status is proudly advertised
on a sign outside the Bar Centrale

Anna was born into the catering business. Her parents ran a guesthouse and trattoria at Vezzo, another hillside village just 10km (six miles) from Nebbiuno. She attended school and went to teacher training college but willingly helped out in the family business whenever she could, whether assisting in the kitchen or waiting at table.

During World War Two, she spent hours stirring a huge pot of polenta, which was given to partisans hiding from the occupying German army.

As a young woman, she moved first to Novara, the second largest city in Piedmont about 40km (25 miles) to the south, and then to Genoa, the coastal city in Liguria, working in bars and restaurants before returning home to buy the bar in Nebbiuno, with Renato. 

The bar’s peak years, according to Anna, were from the 1960s through to the 1980s. 

At first, equipped with pinball machines, a football table and a jukebox, and one of the first to offer video games, the Bar Centrale was a trendy meeting place for young people, who would spend their afternoons playing games and listening to hits.

Its clientele included footballers Gianni Rivera and Fulvio Collovati, who had homes nearby while playing for AC Milan, and even Angelo Moratti, the oil tycoon who owned Inter Milan from 1955 to 1968 and often visited the area.

Today’s customers have a different profile, made up mainly of pensioners from the village and of curious visitors attracted by Anna’s unique claim to fame. The jukebox, meanwhile, has made way for a book stand, where customers can exchange unwanted titles for books they want to read. Yet business remains brisk.

Anna has hinted that she may wind down, if not step aside completely, when Cristina retires from her job at the Municipale, perhaps breaking the habit of the last 50 years or so by actually taking a holiday. Until then, though, the Bar Centrale’s shutters will continue to open at 7am sharp, every day.

The skyline of Novara is dominated by the huge
cupola of the Basilica of San Gaudenzio

Travel tip:

Novara, where Anna Possi worked as a young woman, is the second biggest city in the Piedmont region after Turin. It is situated nearer to Milan than Turin, the Lombardy capital being around 50km (31 miles) east of Novara, while Turin is almost 100km (62 miles) to the southwest. Founded by the Romans, Novara was later ruled by the Visconti and Sforza families. In the 18th century it was controlled by the House of Savoy, who lost it to the Austrians in the 1849 Battle of Novara. This led to the abdication of Charles Albert, the King of Sardinia and ruler of the Savoyard state and is seen as the beginning of the Italian unification movement.  The most imposing building in Novara is the Basilica of San Gaudenzio, which has a 121-metre high cupola designed by Alessandro Antonelli, the creator of Turin’s similarly towering Mole Antonelliana. Novara’s duomo, the cattedrale di Santa Maria Assunta, is the city’s most important church. It is built where the temple of Jupiter stood in Roman times, opposite the oldest remaining building in Novara, the Battistero. Also worth seeing is the Broletto, a medieval architectural complex made up of four historic buildings built in different eras, around a central courtyard. 

Find hotels in Novara with Expedia

Nebbiuno's hillside location offers visitors a
beautiful view over Lago Maggiore

Travel tip:

Vezzo and Nebbiuno, the two villages that have been central to Anna Possi’s life, both lie in the scenic Vergante area of Piedmont, on the western side of Lake Maggiore, which forms a natural border with the neighbouring Lombardy region.  Hilly terrain, lush forests and panoramic lake views are characteristic of the area, which contains notable peaks in Monte Cornaggia and Monte Toriggia, both of which climb to beyond 900m (2,950ft), the area being bordered in the west by Monte Mottarone, which reaches 1,492m (4,895ft) above sea level, part of the Alpi Biellesi e Cusiane. The Vergante area also includes the section of Lake Maggiore that contains three of the four Borromean Islands - Isola Madre, Isola Bella and Isola dei Pescatori. The area offers attractions all year round, including trekking along well-maintained paths in the summer months, gastronomic tours against the backdrop of autumn colours to enjoy dishes combining the products of the forest and the lake, skiing in the winter and a kaleidoscope of spring colours from an abundance of azaleas, camellias and rhododendrons.

Book accommodation in the Vergante area with Hotels.com

More reading:

How Antonio Todde became the oldest living man in the world

The World War One survivor who lived to be 110

The Inter Milan fan who for 10 months was Europe’s oldest living person

Also on this day:

1625: The death of portrait painter Sofonisba Anguissola 

1892: The birth of racing driver Tazio Nuvolari

1974: The birth of world champion ice dancer Maurizio Margaglio

1975: Doctor and scientist Giuseppe Moscati made a saint

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15 November

Enzo Staiola - actor

Child star of neorealist classic Bicycle Thieves

Enzo Staiola, who found international fame as an eight-year-old boy as one of the stars of the Oscar-winning neorealist drama Bicycle Thieves, was born on this day in 1939 in Rome.  Staiola’s character in Vittorio De Sica’s 1948 film was Bruno Ricci, the eldest child in a working class Roman family desperately trying to survive in the hard economic climate that followed the end of the Second World War.  The central character in the film is Bruno’s father, Antonio, who lands a job posting advertising bills around the city but is required to have a bicycle to transport himself, his ladder and bucket to wherever his services are required.  Antonio buys a bicycle after pawning some of the family’s few possessions of value only to have it stolen on his first day at work. The remainder of the film follows Antonio and Bruno as they try to find the bicycle.  Read more…

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The murder of Pellegrino Rossi

Political assassination opened way to creation of Roman Republic

One of the key events during the revolutionary upheaval of 1848 in Italy took place on this day in that year when the politician Count Pellegrino Rossi was murdered at the Palazzo della Cancelleria, the seat of the government of the Papal States in Rome.  The event precipitated turmoil in Rome and led eventually to the formation of the short-lived Roman Republic.  Rossi was the Minister of the Interior in the government of Pope Pius IX and as such was responsible for a programme of unpopular reforms, underpinned by his conservative liberal stance, which gave only the well-off the right to vote and did nothing to address the economic and social disruption created by industrialisation.  Street violence, stirred up by secret societies such as Giuseppe Mazzini’s Young Italy movement, had been going on for weeks in Rome.  Read more…

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Francesco Rosi - film director

Documentary style put him among greats of Italian cinema

The film director Francesco Rosi, one of Italy's most influential movie-makers over four decades, was born on this day in 1922 in Naples.  Rosi, who made his directing debut in 1958 and filmed his last movie in 1997, built on the fashion for neorealism that dominated Italian cinema in the immediate post-war years and his films were often highly politicised.  Many of his works were almost pieces of investigative journalism, driven by his revulsion at the corruption and inequality he witnessed in the area in which he grew up, and the dubious relationships between local government and figures from the crime world.  His film Hands Over the City, for example, starring Rod Steiger as an unscrupulous land developer, sought to show how the landscape of Naples was shaped by greed and political interests. Read more…

Roberto Cavalli – fashion designer

Florentine who conceived the sand-blasted look for jeans

The designer Roberto Cavalli was born on this day in 1940 in Florence.  Cavalli has become well-known in high-end Italian fashion for his exotic prints and for creating the sand-blasted look for jeans. From an artistic family, Cavalli has a grandfather, Giuseppe Rossi, who was a talented painter whose work is on show in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.  As a student, Cavalli attended an art institute where he learnt about printing textiles and in the early 1970s he invented and patented a printing process for leather and began creating patchworks of different materials.  When he took samples of his work to Paris he received commissions from such fashion houses as Hermes and Pierre Cardin. At the age of 32, Cavalli presented the first collection in his name in Paris and then showed it in Florence and Milan.  Read more…

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Annunzio Mantovani - conductor

Orchestra leader brought light relief during World War Two

Conductor and composer Annunzio Paolo Mantovani - best known simply as Mantovani - was born on this day in Venice in 1905.  The music produced by his orchestras, which became known as ‘the Mantovani sound', brought pleasure to millions and his recordings were best sellers in Britain and the US before the Beatles came on the scene.  Mantovani’s father, Benedetto Paolo Mantovani, who was known as ‘Bismarck’, was a violinist and leader of the orchestra of Teatro alla Scala opera house in Milan, at the time Arturo Toscanini was conductor.  The Mantovani family moved to England in 1912 after Bismarck was appointed conductor of the orchestra at Covent Garden.  Young Annunzio Mantovani studied the violin and piano in London before joining a touring orchestra. He quickly became a violin soloist and then a conductor.  Read more…

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Bernardino Nogara - Vatican financial advisor

Former engineer laid foundations for financial strength of the Papacy

The engineer-turned-investment manager Bernardino Nogara, who in 1929 was appointed by Pope Pius XI to look after the financial dealings of the newly-independent Vatican City, died on this day in 1958 in Milan.  Nogara had returned to his homeland - he was born in Bellano, around 80km (50 miles) north of Milan on the shore of Lake Como - upon retiring from his position as Director of the Special Administration of the Holy See in 1954, at the age of 84. Although details of the Vatican’s finances have traditionally been secret, Nogara is thought to have swelled the papal coffers by hundreds of millions of dollars over 25 years.  Yet he is regarded by many commentators as a controversial figure because of the nature of some of his investments. He was alleged to have put money into companies whose businesses could be seen to be incompatible with Catholic Church doctrines.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Italian Neorealism: Rebuilding the Cinematic City, by Mark Shiel

Part of Wallflower Press's Short Cuts series, Italian Neorealism: Rebuilding the Cinematic City is a valuable introduction to one of the most influential of film movements. Exploring the roots and causes of neorealism, particularly the effects of the Second World War, as well as its politics and style, Mark Shiel examines the portrayal of the city and the legacy left by filmmakers such as Rossellini, De Sica, and Visconti. Films studied include Rome, Open City (1945), Paisan (1946), Bicycle Thieves (1948), and Umberto D (1952).

Mark Shiel is lecturer in film studies at King's College, London. He is the author of Cinema and the City and Screening the City.

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14 November

Giuseppina Strepponi – soprano

Death of the woman who inspired Donizetti and Verdi

Opera singer Giuseppina Strepponi died on this day in 1897 at the village of Sant’Agata in the province of Piacenza in Emilia-Romagna.  She was the second wife of the composer Giuseppe Verdi and is often credited with helping him achieve his first successes, having starred in several of his early operas.  Strepponi was born Clelia Maria Josepha Strepponi in Lodi, a little over 40km (26 miles) southeast of Milan, in 1815.  Her father was the organist at Monza Cathedral and also a composer and he gave her piano lessons when she was very young. At the age of 15 she was enrolled at the Milan Conservatory and she won first prize for singing in her final year.  Strepponi made her professional debut in 1834 at the Teatro Orfeo in Taranto and enjoyed her first success the following spring in Trieste, singing the title role in Rossini’s Matilde di Shabran. Read more…

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Enzo Cucchi - artist

Enjoyed prominence as part of Transavanguardia movement

The artist Enzo Cucchi, who was a prominent member of the Italian Transavanguardia movement, was born on this day in 1949 in Morro d'Alba, a walled town set among hills about 10km (6 miles) inland from the Adriatic and 24km (15 miles) west of Ancona in the Marche region.  The Transavanguardia, which peaked during the 1980s, was part of an international revival of expressionist painting. Other Italians who could be considered part of the movement included Sandro Chia, Francesco Clemente, Nicolo de Maria and Mimmo Paladino.  Cucchi’s most important works include the frescoes of the Chapel of Monte Tamaro near Lugano, designed by the architect Mario Botta, which he painted between 1992 and 1994, and the design of the curtain for the theatre La Fenice of Senigallia (1996). Read more…

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Maria Cristina of Savoy

Pious princess was beatified by Pope Francis

Princess Maria Cristina Carlotta Giuseppina Gaetana Elisa of Savoy was born on this day in 1812 in Cagliari on the island of Sardinia.  She was the youngest child of King Victor Emmanuel I of Piedmont-Sardinia and his wife Queen Maria Teresa of Austria-Este.  Maria Cristina was described as beautiful, but she was also modest and pious and in 2014 she was beatified by Pope Francis.  As a Savoy princess she had been expected to make an advantageous marriage alliance and when she was just 20 years of age she was married to Ferdinand II of the Two Sicilies, in an attempt to keep southern Italy on friendly terms, at a ceremony in Genoa.  Modest and reserved, she was never comfortable at the royal court in Naples and she was unhappy with Ferdinand. But she was said to be loved by the ordinary people of the Two Sicilies, who were charmed by her beauty and kindness.  Read more…

Carlo Emilio Gadda - writer and novelist

Author who drew comparisons with Levi and Joyce

The essayist and novelist Carlo Emilio Gadda, whose work has been compared with the writings of Primo Levi, James Joyce and Marcel Proust, was born on this day in 1893 in Milan.  His novels and short stories were considered outstanding for his original and innovative style, moving away from the rather staid language of Italian literature in the early 20th century, adding elements of dialect, technical jargon and wordplay.  It has been said that Gadda opted for his experimental style because he thought that only through the use of a fragmentary, incoherent language could he adequately portray what he considered a disintegrated world.  Born into an upper middle-class family living on Via Manzoni in the centre of Milan, Gadda lost his father when he was only a child, after which his mother had to bring up the family on limited means, although she refused to compromise with her lifestyle. Read more…

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Aleardo Aleardi - poet and patriot

History-loving writer dreamed of a united Italy

Patriotic poet Aleardo Aleardi was born on this day in 1812 in Verona.  At the height of his success he was hailed as an important figure in the Risorgimento movement.  Aleardi’s poems are mostly about events in Italian history and his love for his home country, which was under Austrian occupation while he was growing up.  He was originally named Gaetano Maria but changed his name to Aleardi, the surname of his father, Count Giorgio Aleardi, when he started writing.  Aleardi studied law at Padova University but gradually became more interested in poetry, influenced by some of his fellow students who were involved in the romantic Risorgimento movement.  Risorgimento, which means resurgence, was the name for the political and social movement that led to the consolidation of the different states of the Italian peninsula into the Kingdom of Italy.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Verdi: The Man Revealed, by John Suchet

Giuseppe Verdi remains the greatest operatic composer that Italy, the home of opera, has produced. Yet throughout his life he claimed to detest composing and repeatedly rejected it. He was a landowner, a farmer, a politician and symbol of Italian independence; but his music tells a different story.  An obsessive perfectionist, Verdi drove collaborators to despair but his works were rightly lauded as dazzling feats of composition and characterisation. From Rigoletto to Otello, La Traviatato to Aida, Verdi's canon encompassed the full range of human emotion. His private life was no less complex: he suffered great loss, and went out of his way to antagonise many erstwhile supporters, including his own family. An outspoken advocate of Italian independence and a sharp critic of the church, he was often at odds with 19th-century society. In Verdi: The Man Revealed, John Suchet attempts to get under his skin. Unpicking his protestations, his deliberate embellishments and disingenuous disavowals, Suchet reveals Verdi’s contradictory and sometimes curmudgeonly character, conflicted throughout much of his life but ultimately unable to walk away from the art for which he will be forever known.

John Suchet presented Classic FM's flagship morning programme, from 2011 to 2020. Before turning to classical music, he was one of the UK's best-known television journalists.  His books include Beethoven: The Man Revealed; The Last Waltz: The Strauss Dynasty and Vienna; and Mozart: The Man Revealed.

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13 November

NEW - Roberto Boninsegna - footballer

Prolific striker who helped Italy reach 1970 World Cup final

The footballer Roberto Boninsegna, a prolific striker who scored 171 goals  in 14 years in Italy’s Serie A, was born on this day in 1943 in Mantua in Lombardy.  Boninsegna, whose relentlessly tenacious attacking style made him a fan favourite despite his relatively small physical stature, was at his peak during a seven-season spell with Inter Milan from 1969 to 1976, during which he scored 113 goals in 197 Serie A appearances.  He was also a prominent member of the Italy national team at the 1970 World Cup finals in Mexico, scoring the opening goal for the Azzurri in their epic 4-3 extra-time victory over West Germany in the semi-final.  Boninsegna was also responsible for Italy’s first-half equaliser against Brazil in the final, before the South Americans, universally acclaimed as one of the finest teams in football history, overwhelmed them in the second half, winning 4-1.  Read more…

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Alberto Lattuada – film director

Versatility and eye for talent made him leading figure

A leading figure in Italian cinema, Alberto Lattuada was born on this day in 1914 in Vaprio d’Adda in Lombardy.  Lattuada was the son of the composer Felice Lattuada, who made him complete his studies as an architect before allowing him to enter the film business.  As a student, Lattuada was a member of the editorial staff of the antifascist publication Camminare and also of Corrente di Vita, an independent newspaper. Corrente di Vita was closed by the Fascist regime just before Italy entered the Second World War. Lattuada, who is said to have detested fascism, helped to organise a screening of a banned anti-war film at about this time, which got him into trouble with the police.  In 1940 Lattuada started his cinema career as a screenwriter and assistant director on Mario Soldati’s Piccolo mondo antico (Old-Fashioned World).  Read more…

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Giovanna of Italy - Tsaritsa of Bulgaria

Daughter of King of Italy who married Tsar Boris III

The girl who would grow up to be Ioanna, Tsarista of Bulgaria, was born Princess Giovanna Elisabetta Antonia Romana Maria of Savoy on this day in 1907 in Rome.  Giovanna’s father was King Victor Emmanuel III, who was Italy’s monarch through two world wars from 1900 until he abdicated in 1946 just as Italy was about to become a republic.  Her mother was Queen Elena of Montenegro.  At the age of 22, Princess Giovanna became Tsarista Ioanna - the last Tsarista - after marrying the Tsar of Bulgaria, Boris III, in the Basilica of St Francis in Assisi.  It was the hope of the Italian royal family that the marriage would strengthen their relationship with the Balkan states.  The marriage lasted until Boris’s death in 1943 at the age of just 49. The Tsar had fallen ill during a trip to Germany to discuss Bulgaria’s role in the Second World War as a member of the Axis bloc.  Read more…

Gioachino Rossini - composer

Italian musician who found the fast route to wealth and popularity

One of Italy’s most prolific composers, Gioachino Rossini, died on this day in France in 1868.  He wrote 39 operas as well as sacred music, songs and instrumental music. He is perhaps best remembered for, The Barber of Seville (Il barbiere di Siviglia), and Cinderella (La Cenerentola).  Rossini was born into a musical family living in Pesaro on the Adriatic coast in 1792. During his early years his mother earned her living singing at theatres in the area and he quickly developed musical talent of his own.  He made his first and only appearance on stage as a singer in 1805 but then settled down to learn the cello.  His first opera, The Marriage Contract (La cambiale di matrimonio), was staged in Venice when he was just 18.  In 1813 his operas, Tancredi and L’italiana in Algeri, were big successes in Venice and he found himself famous at the age of 20.  Read more…

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Agostina Livia Pietrantoni - saint

Tragic sister’s simple virtue stopped the traffic in the capital

Nun Agostina Livia Pietrantoni died on this day in 1894 in Rome after being attacked by a patient at the hospital where she was working.  Her story touched Romans so deeply that her funeral brought the city to a standstill as thousands of residents lined the streets and knelt before her casket when it passed them.  The November 16 edition of the daily newspaper Il Messaggero reported that a more impressive spectacle had never before been seen in Rome.  ‘From one o’clock in the afternoon, the streets close to Santo Spirito, and all the roads it was believed that the funeral procession would pass, were crowded with people to the point of making the flow of traffic difficult.’  Sister Agostina was beatified by Pope Paul VI in 1972 and canonised by Pope John Paul II in 1999. Her feast day is celebrated each year on November 12.  Read more…

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Dacia Maraini – writer

Long career of a feminist novelist and playwright

Novelist and short story writer Dacia Maraini was born on this day in 1936 in Fiesole in Tuscany.  An Italian writer who is widely recognised abroad, Dacia Maraini is also a respected critic, poet, journalist and playwright. She established la Maddalena, the first Italian theatrical group composed exclusively of women.  The themes of limitation and oppression in Maraini’s writing have their roots in her childhood years, which she spent in a concentration camp in Japan. She then went to live in Sicily, which she has also described as an oppressive setting.  Her writing expresses the concerns of the Italian feminist movement, focusing on issues such as abortion, sexual violence, prostitution and the mother/daughter relationship. Many of her works are autobiographical and are written in the form of diaries and letters.  Maraini lived with the writer Alberto Moravia from 1962 until 1983. Read more…

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Book of the Day: The Power and the Glory: A New History of the World Cup, by Jonathan Wilson

By 1930, football had outgrown the Olympic Games. A new competition, run by Fifa, would take international football to the next level. After a shambolic start to the first tournament in Uruguay - an incomplete stadium, shoddy refereeing and physios accidentally injuring players - the thrilling final saw Uruguay beat Argentina 4-2.  From those chaotic beginnings grew the modern World Cup, a cultural phenomenon that draws the world together like nothing else. Ask a random person to name a moment in the history of Senegal and they may well say Pape Bouba Diop's winner against France in the 2002 World Cup, defeating his country's former colonial masters. The World Cup has political significance. West Germany's success in 1954 was a moment of reintegration into global society, while progress to the semi-finals in 1998 boosted Croatia's sense of national self. At the other end of the scale, in the so-called Soccer War of 1969, tensions between El Salvador and Honduras were ignited by a World Cup qualifier. More recently, hosting the tournament has been a vehicle for governments seeking political gain, the World Cups in Russia and Qatar being clear examples of sportswashing, staging a tournament to project an image of a thriving society. The story of the World Cup is also the story of the world. The Power and the Glory tells its definitive history.

Jonathan Wilson is the editor of The Blizzard and a freelance writer for the Guardian, World Soccer and Sports Illustrated. He is the author of 11 books, including Inverting the Pyramid: The History of Football Tactics, Behind the Curtain: Football in Eastern Europe, Angels with Dirty Faces: The Footballing History of Argentina, The Barcelona Legacy and The Names Heard Long Ago.

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