22 August

Bruno Pontecorvo - nuclear physicist

Defection to Soviet Union sparked unsolved mystery 

Bruno Pontecorvo, a nuclear physicist whose defection to the Soviet Union in 1950 led to suspicions of espionage after he had worked on research programmes in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom, was born on this day in 1913 in Marina di Pisa.  One of eight children born to Massimo Pontecorvo - a Jewish textile manufacturer who owned three factories - Bruno was from a family rich in intellectual talent. One of his brothers was the film director Gillo Pontecorvo, another the geneticist Guido Pontecorvo.  After high school, he enrolled at the University of Pisa to study engineering, but after two years switched to physics in 1931. He received a doctorate to study at the University of Rome La Sapienza, where Enrico Fermi had gathered together a group of promising young scientists, whom he dubbed “the Via Panisperna boys” after the name of the street where the Institute of Physics  was then situated.  Fermi described the 18-year-old Pontecorvo as one of the brightest young men he had met and invited Pontecorvo to work with him on his experiments bombarding atomic nuclei with slow neutrons.  Read more…

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Giada De Laurentiis - TV chef

Food Network star who was born in Rome

The TV presenter, chef, author and restaurateur Giada Pamela De Laurentiis was born in Rome on this day in 1970.  A classically-trained chef who learned her craft in Paris, she worked in the kitchens of a number of restaurants in Los Angeles before breaking into television. Since 2003 she has been a regular on the Food Network, the American cable channel.  Born into a theatre and movie background, De Laurentiis takes her name from her mother, the actress Veronica De Laurentiis, whose parents were the producer Dino De Laurentiis and the actress Silvana Mangano.  Her father is the actor-producer Alex De Benedetti.  Giada spent her first seven years in Rome, where her mother still has a home near the Spanish Steps, but after her parents divorced she and her sisters moved to Los Angeles.  Her grandfather had a home in Hollywood and had by then become a restaurateur and Giada has memories of spending time in the kitchen of his DDL Foodshow delicatessen and restaurant in Los Angeles, where she acquired her interest in cooking.  Her own entry into the catering business came via a roundabout route.   Read more…

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History’s first air raid

Balloon bombs dropped on Venice

Venice suffered the first successful air raid in the history of warfare on this day in 1849.  It came six months after Austria had defeated the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia in the First Italian War of Independence as the Austrians sought to regain control of Venice, where the revolutionary leader Daniele Manin had established the Republic of San Marco.  The city, over which Manin’s supporters had seized control in March 1848, was under siege by the Austrians, whose victory over the Piedmontese army in March 1849 had enabled them to concentrate more resources on defeating the Venetians.  They had regained much of the mainland territory of Manin’s republic towards the end of 1848 and were now closing in on the city itself, having decided that cutting off resources while periodically bombarding the city from the sea would bring Venice’s capitulation.  However, because of the shallow lagoons and the strength of Venice’s coastal defences, there were still parts of the city that were out of the range of the Austrian artillery.  It was at this point that one of Austrian commander Josef von Radetzky’s artillery officers, Lieutenant Franz von Uchatius, came up with the unlikely idea of attaching bombs to unmanned balloons.  Read more…

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Giacomo Radini-Tedeschi – bishop

Progressive priest who shaped the destiny of a future Pope

Giacomo Radini-Tedeschi, Bishop of Bergamo, who was a mentor for the future Pope John XXIII, died on this day in 1914 in Bergamo.  He was Bishop of the Diocese of Bergamo from 1905 until his death and is remembered with respect because of his strong involvement in social issues at the beginning of the 20th century when he sought to understand the problems of working class Italians.  Radini-Tedeschi was born in 1857 into a wealthy, noble family living in Piacenza in Emilia-Romagna.  He was ordained as a priest in 1879 and then became professor of Church Law in the seminary of Piacenza.  In 1890 he joined the Secretariat of State of the Holy See and was sent on a number of diplomatic missions.  In 1905 he was named Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Bergamo by Pope Pius X and was consecrated by him in the Sistine Chapel.  Radini-Tedeschi was a strong supporter of Catholic trade unions and backed the workers at a textile plant in Ranica, a district of Bergamo Province, during a labour dispute.  Working for him as his secretary at the time was a young priest named Angelo Roncalli who had been born at Sotto il Monte just outside Bergamo into a large farming family.  Read more…

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Luca Marenzio – composer

Madrigal writer influenced Monteverdi

Luca Marenzio, a prolific composer of madrigals during the late Renaissance period, died on this day in 1599 in the garden of the Villa Medici on Monte Pincio in Rome.  Marenzio wrote at least 500 madrigals, some of which are considered to be the most famous examples of the form, and he was an important influence on the composer Claudio Monteverdi.  Born at Coccaglio, a small town near Brescia in 1553, Marenzio was one of seven children belonging to a poor family, but he received some early musical training at Brescia Cathedral where he was a choirboy.  It is believed he went to Mantua with the maestro di cappella from Brescia to serve the Gonzaga family as a singer.  Marenzio was then employed as a singer in Rome by Cardinal Cristoforo Madruzzo and, after the Cardinal’s death, he served at the court of Cardinal Luigi d’Este.  He travelled to Ferrara with Luigi d’Este and took part in the wedding festivities for Vincenzo Gonzaga and Margherita Farnese.  While he was there he wrote two books of madrigals and dedicated them to Alfonso II and Lucrezia d’Este.  Read more…

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21 August

Lino Capolicchio - actor

Acclaimed for role in Vittorio De Sica classic

The actor and director Lino Capolicchio, who starred in Vittorio De Sica’s Oscar-winning film The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, was born on this day in 1943 in Merano, an alpine town in the Trentino-Alto Adige region of northern Italy.  Capolicchio appeared in more than 70 films and TV dramas, and dubbed the voice of Bo Hazzard in the Italian adaptation of the American action-comedy The Dukes of Hazzard.  As a director, he won awards for Pugili, a drama-documentary film set in the world of boxing based on his own storylines, but it is for The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, for which he won a David di Donatello award for best actor, that he is best remembered.  The movie is about a wealthy Jewish family in Ferrara in the 1930s, whose adult children, Micol and Alberto, enjoy blissful summers entertaining friends with tennis and parties in the garden of the family’s sumptuous villa.  Capolicchio’s character, Giorgio, from another middle-class Jewish family, falls in love with Micol but she only toys with his attentions. In any event, everything changes with the outbreak of war as northern Italy’s Jewish population become targets for the Nazis and their Fascist allies.  Read more…

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Emilio Salgari – adventure novelist

Author’s heroes and stories are still part of popular culture

Emilio Salgari, who is considered the father of Italian adventure fiction, was born on this day in 1862 in Verona.  Despite producing a long list of novels that were widely read in Italy, many of which were turned into films, Salgari never earned much money from his work. His life was blighted by depression and he committed suicide in 1911.  But he is still among the 40 most translated Italian authors and his most popular novels have been adapted as comics, animated series and films. Although he was not given the credit at the time, he is now considered the grandfather of the Spaghetti Western.  Salgari was born into a family of modest means and from a young age wanted to go to sea. He studied seamanship at a naval academy in Venice but was considered not good enough academically and never graduated.  He started writing as a reporter on the Verona daily newspaper La Nuova Arena, which published some of his fiction as serials. He developed a reputation for having lived a life of adventure and claimed to have explored the Sudan, met Buffalo Bill in Nebraska and sailed the Seven Seas.   Read more…

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Giuseppe Meazza - Italy's first superstar

Inter striker who gave his name to the San Siro stadium

Italian football's first superstar, the prolific goalscorer Giuseppe Meazza, died on this day in 1969, two days before what would have been his 69th birthday.  Most biographical accounts of his life say Meazza was staying at his holiday villa in Rapallo, on the coast of Liguria, when he passed away but John Foot, the historian, says he died in Monza, much closer to his home city of Milan.  Meazza, who was equally effective playing as a conventional centre forward or as a number 10, spent much of his career with Internazionale, the Milan club for whom he scored a staggering 243 league goals in 365 appearances.  In the later stages of his career he left Inter after suffering a serious injury, initially joining arch rivals AC Milan.  A year after his death, the civic authorities in Milan announced that the stadium shared by the two clubs in the San Siro district of the city would be renamed Stadio Giuseppe Meazza in his honour.  Born in the Porta Vittoria area of Milan, not far from the centre, Meazza had a tough upbringing.  His father was killed in the First World War when Giuseppe was only seven.  He was a rather sickly child and was sent to an 'open-air' school.  Read more…

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20 August

NEW - Carla Fracci – ballerina

Brilliant Romantic dancer brought ballet to the people

Destined to become one of the greatest ballerinas of the 20th century, Carolina ‘Carla’ Fracci was born on this day in 1936 in Milan.  Carla became a leading dancer of the La Scala Theatre Ballet in her hometown and then worked with the Royal Ballet in London, Stuttgart Ballet, Royal Swedish Ballet and American Ballet Theatre, becoming known for her interpretations of leading characters in Romantic ballets such as Giselle, Swan Lake and Romeo and Juliet.  As a small child during World War Two, she had been sent to live with relatives in the countryside, but after the war ended, she returned to Milan and her mother took her and her sister to sit the La Scala Theatre ballet school entrance exam.  She has said of her early days at the school that she found it boring and a terrible chore, but after performing alongside Margot Fonteyn in The Sleeping Beauty when she was 12, Carla changed her mind about ballet training and started working hard to make up for lost time.  After joining La Scala Theatre Ballet on graduating, Carla was promoted to a soloist within a year. In 1958 she was asked to fill in for the French ballerina, Violette Verdy, in Cinderella.  Read more…

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Stelvio Cipriani – composer

Musician wrote some of Italy’s most famous film soundtracks

Stelvio Cipriani, an award-winning composer of film scores, was born on this day in 1937 in Rome.  One of his most famous soundtracks was for the 1973 film, La polizia sta a guardare (also released as The Great Kidnapping). The main theme was used again by Cipriani in 1977 for the film, Tentacoli, and also featured in Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof in 2007.  Although Cipriani did not come from a musical background, he was fascinated with the organ at his church when he was a child.  His priest gave him music lessons and then Cipriani went to study piano and harmony at the Santa Cecilia Conservatory in Rome at the age of 14.  His first job was playing in a band on a cruise ship and then he became the accompanist for the popular Italian singer, Rita Pavone.  Stelvio wrote his first movie soundtrack for the 1966 spaghetti western, The Bounty Killer. This was followed by a score for The Stranger Returns in 1967, starring Tony Anthony. He wrote for other films starring Anthony, as well as for many poliziotteschi - Italian crime films - a type of film popular in the 1970s.  Read more…

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Eleonora Fonseca Pimentel – poet and revolutionary

Noblewoman who sacrificed her life for the principle of liberty

A writer and leader of the movement that established the Parthenopean Republic in Naples, Eleonora Fonseca Pimentel was hanged on this day in 1799 in a public square near the port.  A noblewoman, she would have expected her execution to be carried out by beheading, but had given up her title of marchioness when she became involved with the Jacobins, founded by supporters of the French Revolution, who were working to overthrow the monarchy.  Pimentel had asked to be beheaded anyway, but the restored Bourbon monarchy showed her no mercy, reputedly because she had written pamphlets denouncing Queen Maria Carolina as a lesbian. On the day of her execution, Pimentel was reputed to have stepped calmly up to the gallows, quoting Virgil by saying: ‘Perhaps one day this will be worth remembering.’ She was 47 years of age.  Pimentel was born in Rome in 1752 into a noble Portuguese family. As a child she wrote poetry, read Latin and Greek and learnt to speak several languages.  Her family had to move to Naples because of political difficulties between Portugal and the Papal States, of which Rome was the capital.  Read more…

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Jacopo Peri – composer and singer

Court musician produced the first work to be called an opera

The singer and composer Jacopo Peri, also known as Il Zazzerino, was born on this day in 1561 in Rome.  He is often referred to as the ‘inventor of opera’ as he wrote the first work to be called an opera, Dafne, in around 1597.  He followed this with Euridice in 1600, which has survived to the present day although it is rarely performed. It is sometimes staged as an historical curiosity because it is the first opera for which the complete music still exists.  Peri was born in Rome to a noble family but went to Florence to study and then worked in churches in the city as an organist and a singer.  He started to work for the Medici court as a tenor singer and keyboard player and then later as a composer, producing incidental music for plays.  Peri’s work is regarded as bridging the gap between the Renaissance period and the Baroque period and he is remembered for his contribution to the development of dramatic vocal style in early Baroque opera.  Peri began working with Jacopo Corsi, a leading patron of music in Florence, and they decided to try to recreate Greek tragedy in musical form. They brought in a poet, Ottavio Rinuccini, to write a text.  Read more…

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Carla Fracci – ballerina

Brilliant Romantic dancer brought ballet to the people

Fracci performed at most of the
world's top ballet theatres 

Destined to become one of the greatest ballerinas of the 20th century, Carolina ‘Carla’ Fracci was born on this day in 1936 in Milan.

Carla became a leading dancer of the La Scala Theatre Ballet in her home town and then worked with the Royal Ballet in London, Stuttgart Ballet, Royal Swedish Ballet and American Ballet Theatre, becoming known for her interpretations of leading characters in Romantic ballets such as Giselle, Swan Lake and Romeo and Juliet.

As a small child during World War Two, she had been sent to live with relatives in the countryside, but after the war ended, she returned to Milan and her mother took her and her sister to sit the La Scala Theatre ballet school entrance exam.

She has said of her early days at the school that she found it boring and a terrible chore, but after performing alongside Margot Fonteyn in The Sleeping Beauty when she was 12, Carla changed her mind about ballet training and started working hard to make up for lost time.

After joining La Scala Theatre Ballet on graduating, Carla was promoted to a soloist within a year. In 1958 she was asked to fill in for the French ballerina, Violette Verdy, in Cinderella, which led to her being promoted to the role of principal dancer with the company.

A picture of Fracci early in her
career at La Scala Theatre Ballet

Carla left La Scala Theatre Ballet to pursue a career a freelance ballet dancer and  she performed with star partners such as Mikhail Baryshnikov and Rudolf Nureyev.

In 1964, Carla married theatre director Beppe Menegatti and they later had a son, Francesco.

In the late 1980s, Carla began directing ballet companies in Italy. She also helped bring ballet to the people with an open-air performance in Paestum and ballet displays in public squares and schools.

Carla played a vital role in securing a stronger appreciation of ballet in Italy than it had had in the first of the century. The Italian Government acknowledged her achievements with honours in 1983, 2000 and 2003.

After Carla retired from ballet, the family made their home in Florence. Carla died on 27 May this year (2021) in Milan from cancer. She was 84 years of age.

The classically designed Teatro alla Scala in
Milan, better known simply as La Scala

Travel tip:

Milan’s famous Teatro alla Scala, the ballet and opera house of world renown, was founded after a fire in 1776 destroyed the Teatro Regio Ducale, which until then had been the home of opera in Milan. The cost of the new theatre, built on the former location of the church of Santa Maria alla Scala to a design by the great neoclassical architect Giuseppe Piermarini, was borne by the owners of the boxes at the Ducale, in exchange for possession of the land and for renewed ownership of their boxes. The theatre, inaugurated on August 3, 1778 with a production of Antonio Salieri's opera L'Europa riconosciuta, was originally known as the Nuovo Regio Ducale Teatro alla Scala, which was in time shortened to Teatro alla Scala and ultimately to La Scala, by which it is usually known today.  

The second Temple of Hera at Paestum,
built around 2,500 years ago

Travel tip:

Paestum, where Fracci gave an open-air performance, is situated on the coast of Campania about 40km (25 miles) south of Salerno and 10km (six miles) north of Agropoli. It is best known for the extraordinary archaeological site a mile inland that contains three of the best preserved Greek temples in the world, which were once part of the town of Poseidonia - built by Greek colonists from Sybaris, an earlier Greek city in southern Italy, in around 600BC.  The relics cover a large area and takes as much as two hours to explore, but there are several bars close by and a hotel and restaurant just outside the site.

Also on this day:

1561: The birth of court musician Jacopo Peri

1799: The death by hanging of republican noblewoman Eleonora Fonseca Pimentel 

1937: The birth of Stelvio Cipriani, award-winning composer of film scores

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