20 December

NEW - Life is Beautiful - Oscar-winning movie

Roberto Benigni masterpiece released in Italy

The triple Oscar-winning movie La Vita è Bella, which became better known by its English title Life is Beautiful, made its debut in front of Italian cinema audiences on this day in 1997.  Co-written, directed and starring the Tuscany-born actor Roberto Benigni, the film was released in the United States in October 1998 and in the United Kingdom in February 1999. At the Academy Awards in March 1999, it received nominations in seven categories, winning three of them, including Best Actor for Benigni, who joined Anna Magnani and Sophia Loren as the only Italians to win Oscars in the two leading actor categories.  Life is Beautiful, which played to English-language audiences in the original Italian but with English subtitles, also picked up the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, while composer Nicola Piovani won for Best Original Score.  Read more…

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Francesco Bentivegna – military leader

Patriotic baron executed in what was to become Mafia heartland

Baron Francesco Bentivegna, a Sicilian patriot, died on this day at Mezzojuso in Sicily in 1856.  Bentivegna led revolts against the Bourbon rulers of the island in the mid 19th century and became renowned for his bravery.  He was born in Corleone near Palermo - a modern day Mafia stronghold - and it is believed his parents originally intended him for the church.  But after leading his first revolt against the Bourbons in 1848 in Palermo he was appointed military governor of the Corleone district as a reward.  Within 16 months the Bourbon soldiers had reoccupied Palermo and offered all the rebels an amnesty if they pledged loyalty to their French rulers.  Bentivegna refused and again attempted to launch a coup, which was unsuccessful. Afterwards he had to live as a wanted fugitive, while continuing to try to organise revolutionaries.  Read more…

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Giuliana Sgrena – journalist

War reporter who survived kidnapping in Iraq

The journalist Giuliana Sgrena, a war correspondent for an Italian newspaper who was kidnapped by insurgents while reporting the 2003 invasion of Iraq, was born on this day in 1948 in Masera, a village in Piedmont.  Sgrena, who was covering the conflict for the Rome daily Il Manifesto and the weekly German news magazine Die Welt, was seized outside Baghdad University on February 4, 2005.  During her 28 days in captivity, she was forced to appear in a video pleading that the demands of her abductors – the withdrawal of the 2,400 Italian troops from the multi-national force in Iraq – be met.  Those demands were rejected but the Italian authorities allegedly negotiated a $6 million payment to secure Sgrena’s release.  She was rescued by two Italian intelligence officers on March 4 only then to come under fire from United States forces. Read more…

Aulus Vitellius - Roman emperor

Brief reign marked by gluttony and ineptitude

Aulus Vitellius, the third leader of Rome in the so-called Year of the Four Emperors, who history remembers mainly as a glutton, drunkard and gambler, died on this day in 69AD in Rome.  Captured by supporters of his successor, Vespasian, he was dragged through the streets of the capital to the Scalae Gemoniae - the Gemonian Stairs - a flight of steps leading from the Capitoline Hill to the Forum that acquired a symbolic identity as a place of execution, where he was beaten to death.  Vitellius had been emperor for just eight months, his death bringing to an end a period of civil war and the chaos of three short-lived administrations before Vespasian’s accession restored order. Born in 15AD in Nuceria Alfaterna - now the Campanian town of Nocera Superiore - Vitellius was the son of Lucius Vitellius, a censor in the employ of the emperor Claudius. Read more…

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Gigliola Cinquetti - singer and TV presenter

Eurovision win at 16 launched successful career

Gigliola Cinquetti, who was the first Italian to win the Eurovision Song Contest, was born on this day in 1947 in Verona.  She took the prize in Copenhagen in 1964 with Non ho l'età (I'm Not Old Enough), with music composed by Nicola Salerno and lyrics by Mario Panzeri.  Just 16 years old at the time, she scored an overwhelming victory, gaining 49 points from the judges. The next best song among 16 contenders, which was the United Kingdom entry I Love the Little Things, sung by Matt Monro, polled just 17 points.  Non ho l'età became a big hit, selling more than four million copies and even spending 17 weeks in the UK singles chart, where songs in foreign languages did not traditionally do well. It had already won Italy's prestigious Sanremo Music Festival, which served as the qualifying competition for Eurovision at that time.  Read more…

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San Leonardo da Porto Maurizio

Franciscan monk canonised in 1867

San Leonardo da Porto Maurizio, whose feast day is celebrated on November 27 each year, was born Paolo Gerolamo Casanova on this day in 1676 in Porto Maurizio, which is now part of the port city of Imperia in Liguria.  Leonardo recovered from a serious illness developed soon after he became a priest and devoted the remaining 43 years of his life to preaching retreats and parish missions throughout Italy.  He was one of the main propagators of the Catholic rite of Via Crucis - the Way of the Cross - and established Stations of the Cross - reconstructions in paintings or sculpture of Christ’s journey to the cross - at more than 500 locations. He also set up numerous ritiri - houses of recollection.  Leonardo was a charismatic preacher who found favour with Popes Clement XII and Benedict XIV, who helped him spread his missions. Read more…

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Book of the Day: 50 Oscar Nights: Iconic Stars and Filmmakers on Their Career-Defining Wins, by Dave Karger

For almost a century, movie fans have been riveted by the Academy Awards and the stars who have won Oscars. 50 Oscar Nights takes readers behind the scenes of Hollywood's most storied awards show through new and exclusive interviews with dozens of A-list actors, filmmakers, and craftspeople spanning sixty years of the Oscars. Here these artists reflect on their winning work and how the entire experience impacted their life. Some interviews bring to light fun stories such as why Hilary Swank decided to celebrate her Academy Award at the Astro Burger in West Hollywood, or why Elton John was convinced he won his Best Original Song award for the wrong tune. Other interviews illuminate why for some winners, such as Julia Roberts, John Legend, and Octavia Spencer, the day remains a life highlight to be treasured, while for Marlee Matlin, Mira Sorvino, and Barry Jenkins, complex emotions cloud what most think would be a purely celebratory moment.  Filled with more than 150 photos of red-carpet moments, emotional acceptances, and after-party play, 50 Oscar Nights is both a stunning record of cinema glamour and a must-read for any movie lover.

Dave Karger is an award-winning TV host, interviewer, journalist, and film expert. He is a host on Turner Classic Movies and has been the Oscars expert on NBC’s TODAY since 2000.

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Life is Beautiful - Oscar-winning movie

Roberto Benigni masterpiece released in Italy

Life is Beautiful is remembered as
a modern cinematic masterpiece

The triple Oscar-winning movie La Vita è Bella, which became better known by its English title Life is Beautiful, made its debut in front of Italian cinema audiences on this day in 1997.

Co-written, directed and starring the Tuscany-born actor Roberto Benigni, the film was released in the United States in October 1998 and in the United Kingdom in February 1999. 

At the Academy Awards in March 1999, it received nominations in seven categories, winning three of them, including Best Actor for Benigni, who joined Anna Magnani and Sophia Loren as the only Italians to win Oscars in the two leading actor categories.

Life is Beautiful, which played to English-language audiences in the original Italian but with English subtitles, also picked up the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, while composer Nicola Piovani won for Best Original Score.

In total, the film won 22 awards at film festivals around the world, including the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival, a BAFTA for Benigni as Best Actor in a Leading Role, and no fewer than nine David di Donatello awards, considered to be the Italian equivalent of the Oscars.

These included Best Cinematography for Tonino Delli Colli, his fourth David di Donatello in a career spanning more than 50 years that saw him work extensively with the writer and director Pier Paolo Pasolini as well as Sergio Leone, Federico Fellini and many other greats of Italian cinema history.

Life is Beautiful was marketed as a comedy-drama, although as the story of an Italian-Jewish bookshop owner in Arezzo seized and taken to a concentration camp by the Nazis, along with his wife and four-year-old son, its subject matter is hardly light-hearted.

The comedy is created by the sense of fun and jollity in Benigni’s character, Guido, as he woos his future wife, Dora - played by Nicoletta Braschi, who is married to Benigni in real life - during the first part of the story.

Roberto Benigni's comic acting talent came
to the fore in his portrayal of Guido

It is Guido’s sense of humour that underpins the drama of the second part of the film, that follows the Nazi occupation of northern Italy and forced deportations, in which Guido goes to extraordinary lengths to shield his son, Giosuè, portrayed by Giorgio Cantarini, from the true horror that confronts them.  

Guido somehow convinces Giosuè that their stay at the camp is actually a complicated game in which he must perform different tasks, earning points in the process, and that the first to reach 1,000 points wins the prize of a tank. He is told that if he cries, pines for his mother - who is forced to stay in another part of the camp - or says that he is hungry, he will lose points, while quiet boys who hide from the guards earn extra points.

He manages to maintain the pretence for his son’s sake almost to the point of liberation by the Allies, with Giosuè believing that the Sherman tank that leads a unit of American soldiers into the camp to free the prisoners is the prize his father promised he would win.

Despite its difficult storyline, Life is Beautiful was enormously successful, winning public acclaim as well as the approval of critics. Produced on a budget of €12.8 million (approx $15 million, £11 million), it achieved gross earnings of $230.1 million (€196 million, £173 million), which made it one of the highest grossing foreign language films in cinema history.

Nicoletta Braschi starred
opposite her husband

Benigni, whose co-author was the highly respected screenwriter Vincenzo Cerami, says the film was partially inspired by the book In the End, I Beat Hitler, a memoir suffused with dark humour by Italian Auschwitz survivor Rubino Romeo Salmonì, and by the experiences of Benigni's own father, who spent two years in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp during World War II.

He reportedly based the names of the protagonists on Dora De Giovanni and Guido Vittoriano Basile, the aunt and uncle of Nicoletta Braschi. Guido was arrested for anti-fascist activities during World War II and subsequently died in the Mauthausen concentration camp.

Benigni, the first to win the Oscar for Best Actor with a performance in a foreign language, became almost a national hero in Italy, his own exuberance at the Academy Awards ceremony, where he climbed over the back of seats to receive the award on stage from screen icon Loren, attracting almost as much attention as the film itself.

In the context of Italian cinema history, Life is Beautiful has been placed by some commentators alongside Vittorio De Sica’s 1948 neorealist classic Bicycle Thieves and Fellini’s 1960 masterpiece La dolce vita among films that have reshaped international perceptions of Italian big-screen artistry.

Arezzo's famously sloping main square, Piazza Grande,
featured in several scenes in Life is Beautiful

Travel tip:

Much of the location shooting in the first part of Life is Beautiful took place in Arezzo, the city in Tuscany. Situated at the confluence of four valleys - Tiberina, Casentino, Valdarno and Valdichiana – its medieval centre suffered massive damage during the Second World War but a remarkable number of monuments, churches and museums survived, and the city recovered to be one of the most prosperous in Tuscany. Arezzo’s main sights include the Basilica di San Francesco, with its beautiful frescoes by Piero della Francesca, the central Piazza Grande, with its sloping pavement in red brick and the setting for several scenes, the Medici Fortress, the duomo and a Roman amphitheatre.  Arezzo’s original duomo was built on the nearby Pionta Hill, over the burial place of Donatus of Arezzo, who was martyred in 363. In 1203 Pope Innocent III had the cathedral - dedicated to Saints Donato and Pietro - moved within the city's walls, to the current site in another elevated position a short walk from Piazza Grande.  The construction of the current structure started in 1278 and continued in phases until 1511, although the façade visible today, designed by Dante Viviani, was not completed until 1914, replacing one left unfinished in the 15th century.  The interior contains several notable artworks, including a relief by Donatello, entitled Baptism of Christ, and a cenotaph to Guido Tarlati, lord of Arezzo until 1327, said to be designed by Giotto, near to which is Piero della Francesca's Mary Magdalene.  The wooden choir of the Grand Chapel was designed by Giorgio Vasari.

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The colonnaded front of Terni's main church,
the Cattedrale di Santa Maria Assunta

Travel tip:

The concentration camp scenes in Life is Beautiful were filmed mainly at an abandoned factory, adapted for the purpose, near the city of Terni in Umbria, about 82km (49 miles) south of the region’s capital, Perugia. Terni, originally a Roman settlement, of which some remains still exist, including the Cascata delle Marmore, a spectacular 165-metre man-made waterfall. In the medieval period, Terni became associated with Saint Valentine, a former bishop of Terni martyred by the Romans, probably in the fourth century. He was adopted as Terni’s patron saint, his ashes kept in an urn under the main altar of the present Basilica di San Valentino, in Viale Papa Zaccaria, giving rise to Terni becoming known as the City of Love.  Terni’s main church, though, is the Cattedrale di Santa Maria Assunta, with its wide portico along the front and eight statues of former bishops of Terni, including the aforementioned San Valentino. In the 19th and 20th centuries, Terni developed into a major steel-producing hub and today the city balances its industrial character with cultural heritage and natural attractions, making it both a working city and a tourist destination.  

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More reading:

How Life is Beautiful rocketed Roberto Benigni to fame

The five-year-old who captivated audiences with his portrayal of Giosuè

A real-life Holocaust survivor spared while her family perished 

Also on this day:

69: The death of Roman emperor Aulus Vitellius

1676: The birth of San Leonardo da Porto Maurizio

1856: The death of Sicilian patriot Francesco Bentivegna

1947: The birth of singer and TV presenter Gigliola Cinquetti

1948: The birth of journalist Giuliana Sgrena

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19 December

Italo Svevo - writer

Author who became the main character in somebody else’s novel

The novelist Italo Svevo was born Aron Ettore Schmitz on this day in 1861 in Trieste, which was then part of the Austrian Empire.  Schmitz took on the pseudonym, Italo Svevo, after writing his novel La Coscienza di Zeno (Zeno’s Conscience).  The novelist himself then became the inspiration for a fictional protagonist in a book by someone else. The celebrated Irish writer James Joyce, who was working in Trieste at the time, modelled the main character in Ulysses, Leopold Bloom, on his friend Svevo.  Svevo’s own novel, which revealed his deep interest in the theories of Sigmund Freud, received little interest at the time and might have sunk without trace if it had not been for the encouragement of Joyce, who regarded him as a neglected writer. Joyce helped Svevo get the novel translated into French and, after the translated version was highly praised, the Italian critics discovered it.  Read more…

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Gianni Brera - football journalist

Outspoken writer who embellished Italian language

Italy's football world lost one of its most influential personalities on this day in 1992 when a car crash near the town of Codogno in Lombardy claimed the life of the journalist Gianni Brera.  Brera, who was 73, had enjoyed a long and often controversial career in which his writing was famous not only for its literary quality but for his outspoken views.  He could be savage in his criticisms of players and allowed reputations to count for nothing.  His long-running feud with Gianni Rivera, the AC Milan midfielder regarded by many as one of Italian football's all-time greats, in some ways defined his career.  Yet the positions he occupied in Italian football journalism gained him enormous respect.  He rose to be editor-in-chief of La Gazzetta dello Sport, Italy's biggest sports newspaper, before he was 30 and went on to write for Il Giorno, Il Giornale and La Repubblica. Read more…

Alberto Tomba – Italy’s greatest skier

Playboy showman who won three Olympic golds

Italy’s greatest alpine ski racer, Alberto Tomba, was born on this day in 1966 in San Lazzaro di Savena, a town in Emilia-Romagna that now forms part of the metropolitan city of Bologna.  Tomba – popularly known as ‘Tomba la Bomba’ – won three Olympic gold medals, two World Championships and won no fewer than nine titles in 13 World Cup seasons, between 1986 and 1998.  The only other Italian Alpine skiers with comparable records are Gustav Thoni, who won two Olympic golds and four World Championships in the 1970s, and Deborah Compagnoni, who won three golds at both the Olympics and the World Championships between 1992 and 1998.  Thoni would later be a member of Tomba’s coaching team.  Tomba had showmanship to match his talent on the slopes.  Read more…

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Giulio Ricordi - music publisher

Entrepreneur who ‘discovered’ the great Giacomo Puccini 

Giulio Ricordi, who ran the Casa Ricordi publishing house during its peak years in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and launched the career of the brilliant opera composer Giacomo Puccini, was born on this day in 1840 in Milan.  Casa Ricordi was founded by Giulio’s grandfather Giovanni in 1808 and remained in the family when Giovanni died in 1853 and his son, Tito - Giulio's father - took the helm.  Giulio became involved in 1863 after a distinguished military career in the special infantry corps known as the Bersaglieri. He had enrolled as a volunteer with the outbreak of the Second Italian War of Independence in 1859. He took part in the Siege of Gaeta and, after receiving a medal for military valour, was promoted to lieutenant.  During breaks in military activity, Giulio, a keen composer from an early age under the pseudonym of Jules Burgmein, wrote pieces of music. Read more…

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Book of the Day: Ulysses, by James Joyce

Widely regarded as one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century, Ulysses is James Joyce’s towering modernist masterpiece, a bold, richly layered reimagining of Homer’s Odyssey set over the course of a single day in Dublin.  First published in its entirety in 1922, Ulysses follows the thoughts, encounters, and inner lives of three main characters, Leopold Bloom, Stephen Dedalus, and Molly Bloom, as they navigate the ordinary yet deeply symbolic events of 16th June 1904. Through its stream-of-consciousness narrative, linguistic experimentation, and profound psychological insight, Joyce reshaped the possibilities of fiction and redefined the novel for generations to come.  Controversial in its time for both style and subject matter, Ulysses was initially banned in several countries, yet has since come to be celebrated for its groundbreaking artistry and emotional depth. A cornerstone of modern literature, Ulysses is a challenging, exhilarating, and essential read.  

James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde and is regarded as one of the most influential and important authors of the 20th century. Best known for Ulysses, Joyce’s other well-known works are the short-story collection Dubliners (1914), and the novels A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) and Finnegans Wake (1939). 

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18 December

Camillo Castiglioni - business entrepreneur

Young man from Trieste who reached for the skies

Camillo Castiglioni, a financier and aviation pioneer once reputed to be the wealthiest man in Central Europe, died on this day in 1957 in Rome.  Castiglioni was an Italian-Austrian banker who played a big part in the early days of aviation and also invested his wealth in the arts.  He was born in Trieste in 1879, when the port on the Adriatic, now firmly established as part of Italy, fell within the boundaries of Austria-Hungary.  His father, Vittorio, was a prominent figure in the large Jewish community in Trieste, where he was vice-rabbi, and there were hopes that Camillo might also become a rabbi. But after being educated in the law and working as an attorney and legal officer in a bank in Padua, where he quickly learnt about international finance and how to manage capital, it was clear his focus would be business.  Read more…

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Gianluca Pagliuca – record-breaking goalkeeper

No one has saved more penalties in Serie A matches

The footballer Gianluca Pagliuca, once the most expensive goalkeeper in the world, record-holder for the most appearances by a goalkeeper in the Italian soccer championship and still the stopper with the most penalty saves in Serie A, was born on this day in 1966 in Ceretolo, a small town about 10km (6 miles) from the centre of Bologna.  Pagliuca made 592 appearances in Serie A, taking the record previously held by Italy’s World Cup-winning captain Dino Zoff for the most by a goalkeeper in the top division of the Italian League. He held the record for 10 years from September 2006 until it was overtaken by another of Italy’s greatest goalkeepers, Gianluigi Buffon, in 2016.  He played for four major clubs in his career, starting with Sampdoria, with whom he won the Serie A title – the Scudetto – in 1990-91. Read more…

Antonio Stradivari – violin maker

Craftsman from Cremona produced the world’s best stringed instruments

The man who produced violins worth millions, Antonio Stradivari, died at the age of 93 on this day in Cremona in 1737.  Stradivari was an ordinary man who worked as a luthier, a maker of stringed instruments, but experts now consider him to be the greatest ever in his field.  He is believed to have produced more than 1,100 instruments, often referred to as 'Stradivarius' violins.  About 650 of them are still in existence today and in the last few years some of his violins and violas have achieved millions of dollars at auction.  The Stradivari family date back to the 12th century in Cremona and it is believed Antonio was born there in 1644.  It is thought he was apprenticed to the violin maker Nicolò Amati. The label on the oldest violin still in existence, known to have been made by Stradivari, bears the date 1666.  Read more…

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Mara Carfagna - politician

Former glamour model became important voice in Italian parliament

The politician Mara Carfagna, a one-time glamour model and TV hostess who became vice-president of the Chamber of Deputies in the Italian parliament, was born on this day in 1975 in Salerno.  Originally named Maria Rosaria Carfagna, she left high school to study dance at the school of the Teatro San Carlo in Naples, obtaining a diploma before going on to study acting and the piano.  In 1997 she won a beauty contest as Miss 1997 and participated in the finals of Miss Italia. She had her first experience in television as one of the co-presenters during the 1997-98 season of the Rai variety show, Domenica In, with Fabrizio Frizzi.  Carfagna found herself in demand as a model and posed for some magazine and calendar shoots, but at the same time was studying law at the University of Salerno, graduating with honours in 2001.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Aircraft of World War I 1914-1918: The Essential Aircraft Identification Guide, by Jack Herris

Illustrated with detailed artworks of combat aircraft and their markings, Aircraft of World War I: The Essential Aircraft Identification Guide is a comprehensive study of the aircraft that fought in the Great War of 1914-18. Arranged chronologically by theatre of war and campaign, this book offers a complete organizational breakdown of the units on all the fronts, including the Eastern and Italian Fronts. Each campaign includes a compact history of the role and impact of aircraft on the course of the conflict, as well as orders of battle, lists of commanders and campaign aces such as Manfred von Richtofen, Eddie Rickenbacker, Albert Ball and many more. Every type of aircraft is featured, including the numerous variations and types of well- known models, such as the Fokker Dr.I, the Sopwith Camel and the SPAD SVII, through to lesser-known aircraft, such as the Rumpler C.1, and the Amstrong Whitworth FK8. Each aircraft profile is accompanied by exhaustive specifications, as well as details of individual and unit markings. Packed with more than 200 colour profiles of every major type of combat aircraft from the era, Aircraft of World War I 1914-1918 is an essential reference guide for modellers, military historians and aircraft enthusiasts.

Jack Herris, whose parents both built planes for North American Aviation during WW2, graduated from the University of Washington with a Bachelor of Science in Aeronautics and Astronautics before serving as a naval aviator. He is a long-time member of the League of WWI Aviation Historians, and has published several books.

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