Vincenzo Lancia - racing driver and engineer

Founder of ground-breaking car maker

Vincenzo Lancia in 1908, at the wheel
of a Fiat car at the Targa Florio race

Vincenzo Lancia, the founder of one of the most important car manufacturers in the history of Italy’s automobile industry, died on this day in 1937 in Turin.

He was only 55 years old and had suffered a heart attack, his unexpected death coming just as the aerodynamic Lancia Aprilia, second only to the 1922 Lambda among Lancia cars to have a profound impact on auto design across the world, was about to go into full production.

Vincenzo, who worked with the brilliant designer Battista 'Pinin' Farina in the later part of his career, is regarded as one of the three foundational figures of Italian car making, alongside Fiat founder Giovanni Agnelli, who was the first to manufacture cars on an industrial scale, and Enzo Ferrari, who led the way in Italy’s sports car culture.

Italy has a long tradition of stylish high-performance cars, with Ferrari, Lamborghini, Maserati, Alfa Romeo and Lancia recognised as the standard bearers.

The Lancia company was founded in 1906, Vincenzo having gained experience working for Fiat, for whom he was a test driver and often drove their cars in races.

Vincenzo Lancia - often called Censin - was born in August 1881 in Fobello, a small village in a mountain valley in northern Piedmont, about 18km (11 miles) from the border with Switzerland and 26km (16 miles) west of Lago Maggiore. 

Thanks to his father, Giuseppe, who had been successful in the food canning industry, the family was comfortably off. His father had ambitions for his son to build a steady career in accountancy or the law. He studied bookkeeping at the Turin Technical School. 

Yet, as industrialisation began to expand rapidly in Italy, Vincenzo was increasingly interested in machines and the engineers who built them.

By chance, an opportunity arose for him when his father agreed to rent some property he owned in Turin to Giovanni Ceirano, a pioneering bicycle and early automobile builder, who needed premises to open a workshop. 

Vincenzo eventually persuaded his father to let him work with Ceirano, ostensibly to further his experience in accountancy. He was listed in the company's brochure in 1898 as bookkeeper.

The 1922 Lancia Lambda was the first production
car to be built with a rigid single shell body 

His real purpose was to learn about building cars, volunteering to help out as a mechanic when not needed in the office.

If he had set out somehow to put himself in the right place at the right time in the development of the Italian car industry, it could not have gone better if he had planned it.

The prototype car Ceirano produced, given the curious, English-sounding name of Welleyes, made such an impression when it was exhibited for the first time that a group of entrepreneurs looking for an opportunity to enter the fledgling automobile market proposed not only to buy the patent for the Welleyes car, but to take control of the Ceirano factory too, along with all its employees. 

The company they formed in order to do this was named Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino - FIAT.

Thus, at the age of 18, Vincenzo Lancia found himself employed by Fiat. As the Welleyes became the Fiat 4 HP, the company’s first production model, Lancia’s role was as a test driver. Soon, he began competing for the company in local races, achieving his and Fiat's first victory in the 1902 Turin Sassi- Superga race. 

His record as a competitive driver was mixed. He often set records for the fastest lap but his driving style was impetuous and he often failed to finish because of technical problems or minor accidents. 

The Fiat 4HP, the first car to bear the Fiat name
after Vincenzo Lancia joined the new company

There were some successes, although Fiat valued him mainly for his mechanical sensitivity and his ability to diagnose faults as he drove at speed. His feedback helped refine early Fiat models.

In the meantime, in partnership with Claudio Fogolin, a friend and fellow Fiat driver, Vincenzo had in 1906 founded his own car manufacturing, under the Lancia name, in Turin, operating from a small workshop on Via Ormea, at the corner of Via Donizetti, in the south eastern part of the city.

Their first car was called the Tipo 51 or 12 HP, which Vincenzo later renamed as Alfa, beginning a tradition of naming vehicles he produced after letters in the Greek alphabet.  As the business grew, the factory moved to larger premises in the Borgo San Paolo district.

Right from the start, Lancia was different from other Italian marques: it prioritised engineering innovation over mass production, emphasising precision, and mechanical elegance. Vincenzo insisted on rigorous testing and would delay production rather than release a car that did not meet his standards.

The Lambda, which first appeared in 1922, was almost certainly his most important contribution to automotive history. Its monocoque construction, combining the body shell and chassis in one rigid unit, was a world first in production cars, as was its independent front suspension. 

Lancia’s conceptual leap in the way the Lambda was made brought major improvements in handling and safety and influenced car design across Europe, setting the template for modern vehicle construction. The monocoque body became the global standard for passenger cars.

The innovative, aerodynamic Lancia Aprilia was
about to go into production when Vincenzo died 

Vincenzo’s personal prestige grew with the reputation of his cars. He was instrumental, as a high-profile supporter, in the construction of the Monza race track, at which he laid the foundation stone in 1922. In 1930, he joined forces with a group of other industrialists to form the coachbuilding company called Carrozzeria Pinin Farina, headed by the car designer Battista ‘Pinin’ Farina, which was to become synonymous with Italian sports cars and influenced the design of countless luxury and family cars across the world.

Lancia teamed up with Pinin Farina to work on his second ground-breaking car, the Aprilia, which was just weeks away from going into production when Vincenzo died. The Aprilia was one of the first cars designed using a wind tunnel, its streamlined body achieving record low drag. The Aprilia also featured four pillarless doors, a narrow-angle V4 engine and independent suspension.

Vincenzo Lancia was a contradictory character, according to those who knew him. A jovial bon viveur away from work, a music lover who was good company, he was a perfectionist in his professional role, intensely driven and willing to work long hours to achieve his goals. Some say these traits may have contributed to his premature demise.

After his death, a funeral was held in Turin, after which he body was taken back to Fobello and laid to rest in the family tomb at the village’s small cemetery.

The running of the Lancia business was taken over by his son, Gianni, and Gianni’s mother, Adele, who had been Vincenzo’s secretary. They hired Vittorio Jano, the Hungarian-born engineer who had made a name for himself with Alfa Romeo. 

Like his father, Gianni was energetic, ambitious and imaginative and Lancia continued to produce technically brilliant cars, the Aprilia being followed by the Ardea, Aurelia and later the Flaminia. 

But the company’s engineering‑first philosophy became increasingly expensive to sustain and ultimately contributed to Lancia becoming part of Fiat in 1969.

The Villa Lancia in the village of Fobello, in the High
Mastallone Valley, was the Lancia family home

Travel tip:

Fobello, where Vincenzo Lancia was born, is a small mountain village in Valsesia, in the province of Vercelli, Piedmont. It sits at about 880 metres in the High Mastallone Valley, surrounded by dense beech woods and gentle alpine slopes. The area is often called the “Emerald Basin” because of its unusually lush, sunlit green amphitheatre of forests and meadows. Fobello is part of the High Valsesia Nature Park, one of the most pristine alpine environments in Piedmont. It is a popular area for hiking and excursions through beech forests and high pastures, for wildlife observation and exploring traditional alpine hamlets, of which there are many in the vicinity. The name Fobello is traditionally linked to the Valsesian word fo, meaning beech, although some local lore suggests it may be a contraction of fondo bello, which could be taken to mean beautiful valley floor. Fobello’s parish church, the Chiesa San Giacomo dates back to 1545 but has twice been destroyed by flooding from the nearby Mastallone torrent, being rebuilt in 1931. The Palazzo Giuseppe Lancia, which Vincenzo Lancia himself built as a school building, now houses a museum dedicated to Vincenzo’s life and career. Visitors to Fobello often stay in nearby Varallo.

Find a hotel in Varallo with Hotels.com

Only an aerial photograph can capture the sheer
size of the former Fiat factory at Lingotto

Travel tip:

The automobile industry in Turin is mainly defined by Fiat, whose former headquarters in Via Nizza in the Lingotto district, where Vincenzo Lancia worked before setting up in business himself, was once the largest car factory in the world, built to a linear design by the Futurist architect Giacomo Matte Trucco. It featured a spectacular rooftop test track made famous in the Michael Caine movie, The Italian Job. The track is still in place and though Fiat’s main production centre is elsewhere, is still used to test the company’s range of electric cars. Redesigned in the 1980s by the award-winning contemporary architect Renzo Piano, it now houses concert halls, a theatre, a convention centre, shopping arcades and a hotel, as well as the Pinacoteca Agnelli art gallery and the Automotive Engineering faculty of the Polytechnic University of Turin.  The Oval Lingotto, an indoor arena built for the 2006 Winter Olympics, is now used for exhibitions.

Book at the NH Lingotto Congress or other Turin hotels with Expedia

More reading:

How Battista ‘Pinin’ Farina became a giant of the car industry

What made Vittorio Jano one of the greatest engine designers in motor racing history

The ‘tractor maker’ insult that inspired Ferruccio Lamborghini

Also on this day:

1564: The birth of Renaissance scientist Galileo Galilei

1898: The birth of comic actor Totò

1910: The birth of circus clown Charlie Cairoli

1927: The birth of cardinal Carlo Maria Martini

1944: The destruction of Monte Cassino Abbey

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14 February

Jacopo Bassano – painter

Artist loved brilliant colours and drew his inspiration from real life

The artist who became known as Jacopo Bassano died on this day in 1592 in Bassano del Grappa in Veneto in northern Italy.  He was born in about 1510 in Bassano del Grappa.  According to some accounts, he was christened Jacopo dal Ponte, although the inscription on his statue in the town names him Giacomo da Ponte. His father, Francesco il Vecchio, was already a successful painter in Bassano and had established a workshop that produced mostly religious works.  Jacopo became an apprentice in his father’s workshop while still a young boy. He made his way to Venice when he was about 20, where he studied under Bonifazio de Pitati, who was also known as Bonifazio Veronese.  While in Venice, he met famous artists, such as Titian and il Pordenone, and his work from this period shows Titian’s influence and demonstrates his lifelong appreciation of the great artist’s work.  Read more…

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Otto e mezzo - Fellini's masterpiece

Creative crisis spawned director's tour de force

The film Otto e mezzo (8½), regarded by some critics as the director Federico Fellini's greatest work, was released in Italy on this day in 1963.  It was categorised as an avant-garde comedy drama but the description hardly does it justice given its extraordinary individuality, evolving from conception to completion as an interweaving of fantasy and reality in which life not so much imitates art as becomes one and the same thing.  By the early '60s, Fellini was already a three-times Oscar winner following the success of La strada, Nights of Cabiria and La dolce vita, the last-named having also won the Palme d'Or at Cannes.  La dolce vita had signalled Fellini's move away from the neo-realism that characterised cinema in Italy in the immediate post-war years towards the surreal interpretations of life and human nature that came to define Fellini's art.  Read more…

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Valentina Vezzali – fencer

Police officer is Italy’s most successful female athlete

The fencer Valentina Vezzali, whose three Olympic and six World Championship individual gold medals make her Italy’s most decorated female athlete of all time, was born on this day in 1974 in the town of Iesi in Marche.  A police officer who sat in the Italian Chamber of Deputies as a representative for Marche until 2018, Vezzali retired from competition after the 2016 World Championships.  Her haul of six Olympics golds in total – three individual and three from the team event – has not been bettered by any Italian athlete, male or female.  Two other Italian fencers from different eras – Edoardo Mangiarotti and Nedo Nadi – also finished their careers with six golds. Fencing has far and away been Italy’s most successful Olympic discipline, accruing 49 gold medals and 125 medals in total, more than twice the number for any other sport.  Read more…

The Feast of the Lovers

A day for flowers, chocolates and padlocks

Today is called La festa degli innamorati (The Feast of the Lovers) in Italy when couples celebrate their love for each other.  Italian lovers give each other flowers and chocolates and celebrate with romantic dinners just like the rest of the world.  Chocolatiers Perugina make a special version of their Baci chocolate for the occasion in a shiny, red wrapper with a red cherry in the centre rather than the traditional hazelnut.  Florence and Venice are traditionally considered to be the most romantic places in Italy, but Verona, the city of Romeo and Juliet, puts on several days of celebration for the festival each year, featuring a programme of poetry, music and events, including a Romeo and Juliet half-marathon.  The streets around Piazza Bra and Juliet’s house and balcony are illuminated along with the tallest building in the city, the Lamberti tower. Read more…

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San Valentino and Sant’Antonino

Celebrations for two different Italian saints

Saint Valentine, a third century Roman martyr, is commemorated with a feast day on this day every year.  His name has become associated with the tradition of courtly love but all that is really known about him is that he was martyred and buried at a cemetery on the Via Flaminia in Rome on 14 February, 273.  His feast day was first established in 496 by a Pope who revered him. It is thought he was imprisoned and tortured and then hastily buried, but that his disciples later retrieved his body.  During the Middle Ages it was believed that birds paired in mid-February and this is probably why Saint Valentine’s Day became associated with romance.  But while lovers all over the world raise a glass to Saint Valentine on this day, residents and visitors in Sorrento celebrate the festival of Sant’Antonino, the city’s patron saint.  Sant’Antonino Abate died on 14 February, 626. Read more…

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Book of the Day: A New History of Italian Renaissance Art (Second Edition), by Stephen J Campbell and Michael W Cole

Stephen Campbell and Michael Cole, respected teachers and active researchers, draw on traditional and current scholarship to present complex interpretations in this new edition of their engaging account of Italian Renaissance art. The book’s unique decade-by-decade structure is easy to follow, and permits the authors to tell the story of art not only in the great centres of Rome, Florence and Venice, but also in a range of other cities and sites throughout Italy, including more in this edition from Naples, Padua and Palermo. This approach allows the artworks to take centre-stage, in contrast to the book’s competitors, which are organized by location or by artist. Other updates for this edition of A New History of Italian Renaissance Art include an expanded first chapter on the Trecento, and a new ‘Techniques and Materials’ appendix that explains and illustrates all of the major art-making processes of the period.  Richly illustrated with high-quality reproductions and new photography of recent restorations, it presents the classic canon of Renaissance painting and sculpture in full, while expanding the scope of conventional surveys by offering a more thorough coverage of architecture, decorative and domestic arts, and print media.

Stephen J Campbell is Henry and Elizabeth Wiesenfeld Professor and Acting Department Chair at Johns Hopkins University. Michael W Cole is Professor and Department Chair of Art History and Archaeology at Columbia University.

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13 February

Benvenuto Cellini – sculptor and goldsmith

Creator of the famous Perseus bronze had a dark history

The colourful life of the Renaissance artist Benvenuto Cellini ended on this day in 1571 with his death in Florence at the age of 70.  A contemporary of Michelangelo, the Mannerist Cellini was most famous for his bronze sculpture of Perseus with the Head of Medusa, which still stands where it was erected in 1554 in the Loggia dei Lanzi of the Piazza della Signoria in Florence, and for the table sculpture in gold he created as a salieri - salt cellar - for Francis I of France.  The Cellini Salt Cellar, as it is generally known, measuring 26cm (10ins) by 33.5cm (13.2ins), is now kept at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, with an insurance value of $60 million.  His works apart, Cellini was also known for an eventful personal life, in which his violent behaviour frequently landed him in trouble. He killed at least two people while working in Rome as a young man. Read more…

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Antonia Pozzi - poet

Tragic writer whose work was published only after her death

The poet Antonia Pozzi, who came to be regarded as one of the greatest Italian poets of the 20th century, was born on this day in 1912 in Milan. Born into a wealthy family, she enjoyed a privileged lifestyle but seemingly a difficult relationship with her parents. She kept diaries and began to write poems as a teenager, although none came to light until she died in tragic circumstances at the age of just 26. Afterwards, her notebooks were found to contain more than 300 poems, which revealed her to be one of the most original voices in 20th century Italian literature.  Most have subsequently been published, to great critical acclaim.  The daughter of Roberto Pozzi, a prominent Milan lawyer, and his aristocratic wife, Countess Lina Cavagna Sangiuliani, Antonia’s literary talent may have been inherited from her great-grandfather on her mother’s side, the 19th century poet and writer, Tommaso Grossi. Read more…

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Isabella d’Este – Marchioness of Mantua

‘The First Lady of the world’

Isabella d’Este, who was a leading cultural and political figure during the Renaissance, died on this day in 1539 in Mantua.  She had been a patron of the arts, a leader of fashion, a politically astute ruler and a diplomat. Such was her influence that she was once described as ‘the First Lady of the world’.  Her life is documented by her correspondence, which is still archived in Mantua. She received about 28,000 letters and wrote about 12,000. More than 2000 of her letters have survived.  Isabella grew up in a cultured family in the city of Ferrara. Her father was Ercole I d’Este, Duke of Ferrara, and her mother was Eleanor of Naples.  She received a classical education and had opportunities to meet famous scholars and artists. She was reputed to have frequently discussed the classics and affairs of state with ambassadors who came to the court.  Read more…

The Challenge of Barletta

The day an Italian red wine proved too good for the French to resist

A group of 13 Italian cavaliers won a duel, which has since gone down in history, against 13 French mounted soldiers, on this day in 1503 near Trani in the region of Puglia.  The celebrated contest has become known as the Challenge of Barletta (Disfida di Barletta), taking its name from a town in the area that later commemorated the victory with a monument.  It is considered one of the earliest displays of Italian national pride, if not the first of its kind, even though it was fought while a war was going on between French and Spanish troops, who were battling to win control of the south of Italy. The Challenge was provoked by a group of French soldiers who had been taken as prisoners of war by the Spanish. They had been invited to a banquet in Barletta at a local osteria, along with some of the Italian knights who were fighting on behalf of the Spanish.  Read more...

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Pierluigi Collina - football referee

Italian arbiter seen as the best in game's history

Pierluigi Collina, arguably the best and certainly the most recognisable football referee in the history of the game, was born on this day in 1960 in Bologna.  Collina, who was in charge of the 1999 Champions League final and the 2002 World Cup final, was named FIFA's referee of the year for six consecutive seasons.  He was renowned for his athleticism, his knowledge of the laws of the game and for applying them with even-handedness and respect for the players, while using his distinctive appearance to reinforce his authority on the field.  Standing 1.88m (6ft 2ins) tall and with piercing blue eyes, Collina is also completely hairless as a result of suffering a severe form of alopecia in his early 20s, giving him an intimidating presence on the field.  Growing up in Bologna, the son of a civil servant and a schoolteacher, Collina dreamed of becoming a professional footballer.  Read more…

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Fire at Teatro di San Carlo

Royal theatre reopens quickly after blaze 

Fire broke out during a dress rehearsal for a ballet at Teatro di San Carlo in Naples on this day in 1816.  The flames spread quickly, destroying a large part of the building in less than an hour.  The external walls were the only things left standing, but on the orders of Ferdinand IV, King of Naples, the prestigious theatre was rebuilt at once.  It was reconstructed following designs drawn up by architect Antonio Niccolini for a horseshoe-shaped auditorium with 1,444 seats. A stunning fresco was painted in the centre of the ceiling above the auditorium depicting a classical subject, Apollo presenting to Minerva the greatest poets of the world.  The rebuilding work took just ten months to complete and the theatre reopened to the public in January 1817.  Teatro di San Carlo had opened for the first time in 1737, way ahead of Teatro alla Scala in Milan and La Fenice in Venice.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini (Everyman's Library Classics), by Benvenuto Cellini. Translated by Anne Macdonell 

Benvenuto Cellini was an artist-craftsman, one of the greatest sculptors in the Renaissance, passionately devoted to art, the worshipper and frequenter of the great men of his time, the 'divine' Michelangelo, who came to his studio, the 'marvellous' Titian (the adjectives are Cellini's ). He loathed the sculptor Torregiano because he had broken Michelangelo's nose. His autobiography gives a quite extraordinarily vivid account of daily life in Renaissance Florence and Rome, its studios, its taverns, its violence, his loves, the kings, cardinals and popes who commission his works. At 27 he helps direct the defence of the castello San Angelo; his account of his imprisonment there under a mad castellan (who thought he was a bat), his escape by an improvised rope, his recapture, his confinement in 'a cell of tarantulas and venomous worms' is a chapter of adventure equal to any in fact or fiction. Later he describes burning all his furniture to achieve sufficient heat to cast off one of his most famous works, Perseus and the Head of Medusa.  The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini was translated by Goethe into German. The Everyman translation by Anne Macdonell (1903) is widely recognised as the most faithful to the energy and spirit of the original.

Anne Macdonell was a British academic and literary translator, whose 1903 translation of Cellini’s autobiography became one of the standard English editions of the early 20th century.

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12 February

Franco Zeffirelli – film director

Shakespeare adaptations made director a household name

The film, opera and television director Franco Zeffirelli was born on this day in Florence in 1923.  He was best known for his adaptations of Shakespeare plays for the big screen, notably The Taming of the Shrew (1967), with Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, Romeo and Juliet (1968) and Hamlet (1990) with Mel Gibson.   Boldly, he cast two teenagers in the title roles of Romeo and Juliet and filmed the tragedy against the backdrop of 15th century buildings in Serravalle in the Veneto region. His film became the standard adaptation of the play and has been shown to thousands of students over the years.  His later films included Jane Eyre (1996) and Tea with Mussolini (1999), while he directed several adaptations of operas for the cinema, including I Pagliacci (1981), Cavalleria rusticana (1982), Otello (1986), and La bohème (2008).  Read more…

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Vittorio Emanuele - Prince of Naples

Heir to the last King of Italy spent his life in exile

Prince Vittorio Emanuele of Savoy, the only son of Umberto II, the last King of Italy, was born on this day in 1937 in Naples.  He had to leave Italy when he was nine years old following the constitutional referendum held in Italy after World War II. The referendum affirmed the abolition of the monarchy and the creation of the Italian republic in 1946.  Umberto II had been King of Italy for just over a month and was afterwards nicknamed the May King. He had been de facto head of state since 1944, after his father, King Victor Emmanuel III, had transferred most of his powers to him.  Umberto lived for 37 years in exile in Cascais on the Portuguese Riviera. He never set foot in his native Italy again as he, and all his male heirs, were banned from Italian soil.  His only son, Vittorio Emanuele, spent most of his life exiled from Italy and living in Switzerland. He married a Swiss heiress and world ranked water skier, Marina Doria, in 1971.  Read more…

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Lazzaro Spallanzani – priest and scientist

18th century biologist who pioneered artificial insemination 

Lazzaro Spallanzani, the first scientist to interpret the process of digestion and the first to carry out a successful artificial insemination, died on this day in 1799 in Pavia.  Spallanzani made important contributions to the experimental study of bodily functions and animal reproduction. His investigations into the development of microscopic life in nutrient culture solutions paved the way for the later research of Louis Pasteur.  Born in Scandiano in the province of Reggio Emilia, the son of a wealthy lawyer, Spallanzani attended a Jesuit college and was ordained as a priest but then went to Bologna to study law.  Influenced by the eminent Laura Bassi, a professor of physics at the University, Spallanzani became interested in science.  In 1754 Spallanzani was appointed professor of logic, metaphysics and Greek at a college in Reggio. Read more…

Michelangelo Cerquozzi – painter

Battle scenes brought fame and riches to Baroque artist

Michelangelo Cerquozzi, the Baroque painter, was born on this day in 1602 in Rome.  He was to become famous for his paintings of battles, earning himself the nickname of Michelangelo delle Battaglie - Michelangelo of the Battles.  Cerquozzi was born into a well-off family as his father was a successful leather merchant. He started his artistic training at the age of 12 in the studio of Giuseppe Cesari, a history painter, with whom the young Caravaggio trained when he first arrived in Rome.  Not much is known about Cerquozzi’s early work, although he is thought to have been influenced by the Flemish and Dutch artists active in Rome at the time. As well as battles, Cerquozzi painted small, religious and mythological works and some still life scenes.  Cerquozzi joined the Accademia di San Luca in 1634 and, although he did not follow their strict rules, he started gradually gaining recognition for his work.  Read more…

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Claudia Mori - actress and singer

Film star who married pop icon Adriano Celentano

The actress, singer and later television producer Claudia Mori, married for more than half a century to Italy’s all-time biggest-selling recording artist, Adriano Celentano, was born on this day in 1944 in Rome.  She and Celentano met in 1963 on the set of Uno strano tipo (A Strange Type), a comedy film in which they were both starring. The two were married the following year at the Church of San Francesco in Grosseto in Tuscany, having kept their intentions secret to avoid publicity.  Mori was only 20 when she and Celentano - six years her senior - were married but she had already made several films.  Born Claudia Moroni, she made her film debut in Raffaello Matarazzo’s romantic comedy Cerasella at the age of just 15 in 1959, featuring as the title character opposite Mario Girotti, the actor who would later change his name to Terence Hill and become famous as the parish priest Don Matteo in television series of the same name.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Franco Zeffirelli: Complete Works - Theatre, Opera, Film, by Caterina Napoleone

Widely considered the definitive volume on Zeffirelli’s artistic output, Franco Zeffirelli: Complete Works covers his entire career across opera, theatre, and film, and is produced with the cooperation of Zeffirelli and his family. It includes essays by respected critics and collaborators.  Its coverage of his opera output includes full-page photos of set designs, costumes, and stage tableaux, notes on his collaborations with major houses such as La Scala, the Met and Covent Garden, and commentary on his visual language.  It discusses his productions of Shakespeare plays for theatre and there are substantial sections devoted to his movie output, particularly Romeo and Juliet, The Taming of the Shrew, Jesus of Nazareth, La Traviata and Hamlet. The tone is admiring but not hagiographic.

Caterina Napoleone is a Rome-born art historian and journalist. She has been a cultural columnist at Il Giornale since 1994 and has written a number of books, including two on Zeffirelli. 

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