5 August

Felice Casson - politician and magistrate

His investigations revealed existence of Operation Gladio

Felice Casson, the magistrate whose investigations exposed the existence of the NATO-backed secret army codenamed Gladio, was born on this day in 1953 in Chioggia, near Venice.  A former mayor of Venice and a Democratic Party senator, Casson devoted much of his career in the judiciary to fighting corruption and rooting out terrorists.  In 1984, his interest in terrorism led him to examine the unsolved mystery of the Peteano bombing in 1972, in which three Carabinieri officers were killed by a car bomb placed under an abandoned Fiat 500 in a tiny hamlet close to the border with Yugoslavia. Casson discovered flaws in the original investigation into the bombing, which at the time was blamed on the left-wing extremist group the Red Brigades, who would later be responsible for the kidnap and murder of Aldo Moro, a former prime minister.  Read more…

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Antonio Barberini – Cardinal

Pope’s nephew amassed fortune and became patron of the arts

Catholic cardinal, military leader and patron of the arts, Antonio Barberini was born on this day in 1607 in Rome.  As one of the cardinal-nephews of Pope Urban VIII he helped to shape the politics, religion, art and music of 17th century Italy and took part in many papal conclaves.  He is sometimes referred to as Antonio the Younger, or Antonio Barberini Iuniore, to distinguish him from his uncle, Antonio Marcello Barberini.  Antonio was the youngest of six children born to Carlo Barberini and Costanza Magalotti. Like his brothers, he was educated at the Collegio Romano.  His brother, Francesco Barberini, became Grand Inquisitor of the Roman Inquisition.  His uncle, Maffeo Barberini, who was elected as Pope the day after Antonio’s 16th birthday and became Pope Urban VIII, was notorious for nepotism and appointed Antonio as a cardinal. Read more…

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Antonio Cesti – opera composer

Singer and organist wrote operas and church music

Composer Pietro Marc’Antonio Cesti was baptised on this day in 1623 in Arezzo in Tuscany. It was also probably the date of his birth.  One of the leading composers of the 17th century, Cesti is said to have written about 100 operas, although only 15 are known today.  He joined the order of Friars Minor, or Franciscans, a Catholic religious group founded by St Francis of Assisi in 1637.  Cesti studied first in Rome and then moved to Venice, where his first known opera, Orontea, was produced in 1649.  In 1652 he became chapel master to Archduke Ferdinand of Austria at Innsbruck and from 1669 he was vice chapel master to the imperial court in Vienna.  Throughout the 17th century his operas were widely performed in Italy. His most famous operas, Il pomo d’oro, La Dori and Orontea, have survived to this day.  Read more…

Franco Lucentini – author

Writer was one half of a famous literary partnership

The novelist Franco Lucentini, who achieved success with Carlo Fruttero in a remarkable literary association, died on this day in 2002 in Turin.  A news correspondent and editor, Lucentini met Fruttero in 1953 in Paris and they started working together as journalists and translators.  But they were best known for the mystery thrillers they produced together.  After choosing a subject they would take it in turns to write and then edit the material until a novel was complete.  Their most popular books were La donna della domenica (The Sunday Woman), which was later made into a film and La verità sul caso D (The D Case), which was based on an unfinished work by Charles Dickens, The Mystery of Edwin Drood.  Lucentini fell foul of the Fascist regime while studying at the University of Rome because of distributing anti-war messages among his fellow students. Read more…

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Leonardo Leo - composer

Baroque musician known for his sense of humour

A prolific composer of comic operas, Leonardo Leo was born on this day in 1694 in San Vito degli Schiavoni (now known as San Vito dei Normanni) in Puglia.  His most famous comic opera was Amor vuol sofferenza - Love requires suffering - which he produced in 1739. It later became better known as La finta frascatana, and received a lot of praise, but Leo was equally admired for his serious operas and sacred music. He has been credited with forming the Neapolitan style of opera composition.  He was enrolled as a young boy as a student at the Conservatorio della Pietà dei Turchini in Naples and was a pupil first of Francesco Provenzale and later of Nicola Fago. It has been speculated that he may have been taught by Alessandro Scarlatti, but it has since been proved by music historians that he could not possibly have studied with the composer.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: The Oxford Handbook of Italian Politics, edited by Erik Jones and Gianfranco Pasquino

The Oxford Handbook of Italian Politics provides a comprehensive look at the political life of one of Europe's most exciting and turbulent democracies. Under the hegemonic influence of Christian Democracy in the early post-World War II decades, Italy went through a period of rapid growth and political transformation. In part this resulted in tumult and a crisis of governability; however, it also gave rise to innovation in the form of Eurocommunism and new forms of political accommodation. The great strength of Italy lay in its constitution; its great weakness lay in certain legacies of the past. Organized crime is one example. A self-contained and well entrenched 'caste' of political and economic elites is another. These weaknesses became apparent in the breakdown of political order in the late 1980s and early 1990s. This ushered in a combination of populist political mobilisation and experimentation with electoral systems design, and the result has been more evolutionary than transformative. Italian politics today is different from what it was during the immediate post-World War II period, but it still shows many of the influences of the past.

Erik Jones is a professor of European Studies and Director of European and Eurasian Studies at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Gianfranco Pasquino, a former member of the Italian Senate is a senior adjunct professor of International Studies of the Johns Hopkins University, and was Professor of Political Science at the University of Bologna.

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4 August

NEW - Anita Garibaldi – national heroine of Italy

Brave wife of Giuseppe Garibaldi was a freedom fighter

Anita Garibaldi, the Brazilian wife of Italy’s revolutionary hero Giuseppe Garibaldi, died in the arms of her husband on this day in 1849 in Mandriole, near Ravenna, in Emilia-Romagna.  She was pregnant and also ill with malaria, but she was having to retreat from Austrian and French troops with the Garibaldian Legion. After her death, her body had to be hurriedly buried, and it was said to have been later dug up by a dog.  A Brazilian revolutionary, Anita had fought alongside Garibaldi in his campaigns, after meeting him in her home country in 1839.  She was born Ana Maria di Jesus Ribeiro in 1821 in Laguna in Brazil. She was the third of ten children born to a poor family.  Anita met Garibaldi, who was a sailor of Ligurian descent, after he had left Europe in 1836 and was fighting on behalf of the separatist Riograndense republic in southern Brazil. Read more…

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Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici - banker

Art enthusiast who was Botticelli’s major patron

The Florentine banker and politician Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici, who was a significant figure in Renaissance art as the main sponsor and patron of the painter Sandro Botticelli, was born on this day in 1463.  The great-grandson of Giovanni di Bicci de’ Medici, the founder of the Medici bank, Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco belonged to the junior, sometimes known as ‘Popolani’ branch of the House of Medici.  In 1476, when he and his brother, Giovanni, were still boys, their father, Pierfrancesco de’ Medici the Elder, died. They became wards, effectively, of their cousin, Lorenzo il Magnifico - Lorenzo the Magnificent - a member of the senior branch of the family and the effective ruler of Florence.  Relations between the two branches were tense and not helped when Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco discovered, on becoming an adult, that Lorenzo had plundered a considerable sum from he and his brother’s joint inheritance. Read more…

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Pope Urban VII

Pope for just 12 days but introduced world's first smoking ban

Pope Urban VII was born Giovanni Battista Castagna on this day in 1521 in Rome.  Although his 12-day papacy in 1590 was the shortest in history, he is remembered as being the first person in the world to declare a ban on smoking.  He was against the use of tobacco generally, threatening to excommunicate anyone who ‘took tobacco in the porchway of, or inside a church, whether it be by chewing it, smoking it with a pipe, or sniffing it in powdered form through the nose’.  The ban is thought to have been upheld for the most part until 1724, when Pope Benedict XIII, himself a smoker, repealed it.  Castagna was the son of a nobleman of Genovese origin and studied in universities all over Italy. He obtained a doctorate in civil law and canon law from the University of Bologna.  He served as a constitutional lawyer to Pope Julius III and was then ordained a priest.  Read more…

Lucrezia Maria Romola de’ Medici – noblewoman

Daughter of Lorenzo the Magnificent supported popes and poets

Lucrezia Maria Romola de’ Medici, who as a newborn baby inspired Sandro Botticelli’s depiction of baby Jesus in one of his paintings, was born on this day in 1470 in the Republic of Florence.  After her brother became Pope Leo X, Lucrezia helped him fund papal building projects in Florence and Rome. She also raised money to pay a ransom and secure the release of her husband when he was taken prisoner by the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V.  She had 11 children, many of whom were to play an important part in the history of Renaissance Europe.  Lucrezia was the eldest daughter of Lorenzo de’ Medici and Clarice Orsini. After her birth, Botticelli painted Our Lady of the Magnificat, which is now in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, and used her image as a baby as the model for the figure of the newborn Christ in his masterpiece.  Read more…

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Giovanni Spadolini - politician

The first non-Christian Democrat to lead Italian Republic

Giovanni Spadolini, who was the Italian Republic’s first prime minister not to be drawn from the Christian Democrats and was one of Italy's most respected politicians, died on this day in 1994.  In a country where leading politicians and businessmen rarely survive a whole career without becoming embroiled in one corruption scandal or another, he went to the grave with his reputation for honesty intact.  Although he was an expert on Italian unification and became a professor of contemporary history at the University of Florence when he was only 25, a background that gave him a deep knowledge of Italian politics, he first built a career as a journalist.  He became a political columnist for several magazines and newspapers, including Il Borghese, Il Mondo and Il Messaggero, and was appointed editor of the Bologna daily II Resto del Carlino in 1955, at the age of 30.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: The Hero's Way: Walking with Garibaldi from Rome to Ravenna, by Tim Parks

In the summer of 1849, Giuseppe Garibaldi, Italy's legendary revolutionary hero, was finally forced to abandon his defence of Rome. He and his men had held the besieged city for three long months, but now it was clear that only surrender would prevent slaughter and destruction at the hands of a much superior French army.  Against all odds, Garibaldi was determined to turn defeat into moral victory. On the evening of 2 July, riding alongside his pregnant wife Anita, he led 4,000 hastily assembled volunteers out of the city to continue the struggle for national independence in the countryside. Hounded by both French and Austrian armies, the garibaldini marched hundreds of miles through Umbria and Tuscany, then across the Apennines, Italy's mountainous spine, until, after 32 exhausting days of skirmishes and adventures, 250 survivors boarded fishing boats on the Adriatic coast in an ill-fated attempt to reach the independent Republic of Venice.  It would be ten years before Garibaldi would astonish the world when his revolutionary campaign in Sicily became the catalyst to the unification of Italy. This is the lesser-known story, brought vividly to life by bestselling author Tim Parks, who in the blazing summer of 2019, together with his partner Eleonora, followed Garibaldi and Anita's arduous journey. The Hero's Way is a fascinating portrait of Italy past and present, and a celebration of determination, creativity, desperate courage and profound belief.

Tim Parks was born in Manchester, grew up in London and lives in Milan. His novels and non-fiction works include Europa, A Season with Verona, Teach Us to Sit Still, Italian Ways and Italian Life, and he has translated from Italian works by Alberto Moravia, Italo Calvino, Roberto Calasso, Antonio Tabucchi, Niccolò Machiavelli and others.

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Anita Garibaldi – national heroine of Italy

Brave wife of Giuseppe Garibaldi was a freedom fighter

Anita Garibaldi met her future husband
in Brazil and they married in Uruguay

Anita Garibaldi, the Brazilian wife of Italy’s revolutionary hero Giuseppe Garibaldi, died in the arms of her husband on this day in 1849 in Mandriole, near Ravenna, in Emilia-Romagna.

She was pregnant and also ill with malaria, but she was having to retreat from Austrian and French troops with the Garibaldian Legion. After her death, her body had to be hurriedly buried, and it was said to have been later dug up by a dog.

A Brazilian revolutionary, Anita had fought alongside Garibaldi in his campaigns, after meeting him in her home country in 1839.

She was born Ana Maria di Jesus Ribeiro in 1821 in Laguna in Brazil. She was the third of ten children born to a poor family. At the age of 14 she was forced to marry, but her husband later abandoned her to join the Brazilian Imperial Army.

Anita met Garibaldi, who was a sailor of Ligurian descent, after he had left Europe in 1836 and was fighting on behalf of the separatist Riograndense republic in southern Brazil. They fell in love immediately and she joined him on his ship, the Rio Pardo.

She soon saw military action in battles at Imbituba, and Laguna, during which she fought at the side of her lover.

Anita was said to have been a skilled horsewoman, who taught Garibaldi about the Gaucho culture of the Pampas of southern Brazil. It was claimed by one of Garibaldi’s comrades that she had the strength and courage of a man, with the charm and tenderness of a woman. She was reputed to have been very beautiful with an oval-shaped face and remarkable eyes.

During one battle, Anita and Garibaldi became separated and Anita was captured. Her guards told her Garibaldi was dead, but she did not believe them. She asked if she could search the battleground for his body and they agreed, but she could not find him, which gave her hope.

Garibaldi and Anita fought together
in the defence of Rome in 1849

When she came across a horse, she mounted it and escaped at a gallop. The soldiers chased her and shot and killed her horse and so she waded into a river to escape from them. 

After they had given her up for dead, she spent four days wandering, without food or drink, in woodland in the area, until she encountered someone who gave her something to eat.

Eventually, Anita was able to get in touch with the rebels and she was reunited with Garibaldi in Vacaria. 

A few months later, their first child, Menotti, was born. He had a skull deformity resulting from Anita’s fall from the horse, but he grew up to be a freedom fighter and accompanied Garibaldi on his campaigns in Italy.

In 1841, Anita and Garibaldi moved to Montevideo in Uruguay and they were married there in 1842. They went on to have another three children.

After Garibaldi took command of the Uruguayan fleet, Anita participated in his defence of Montevideo against Argentina in 1847.

Anita accompanied Garibaldi when he returned to Italy to join in the revolutions of 1848, where he fought against the Austrians.

In 1849, Garibaldi joined in the defence of the newly-proclaimed Roman Republic against Neapolitan and French intervention. But after Rome fell to the French at the end of June that year, Garibaldi and Anita found themselves forced to flee with their troops from the French and Austrian soldiers.

A magazine illustration imagines Anita with
Garibaldi in the last moments of her life

After Anita’s death in the farmhouse in Mandriole, Garibaldi continued to honour her memory. When he hailed Victor Emmanuel II as King of the newly-united Italy, 12 years later, he was wearing Anita’s striped scarf over his south American poncho.

Anita Garibaldi is recognised as a national heroine in Brazil and has squares named after her and a museum dedicated to her memory,

In Italy, her legacy was used by Mussolini in 1932, when there was a discussion about removing Garibaldi’s statue from the top of the Gianicolo. 

Mussolini not only refused to remove the statue of Garibaldi, but also said he would erect a statue of Anita Garibaldi on the same hill. The resulting statue depicted her mounted on a rearing horse holding her baby son close to her, while brandishing a pistol, as she leads her husband’s army to victory.

Garibaldi carries Anita through the 
Comacchio lagoons (Pietro Bauvier)

Travel tip:

Fattore Guiccioli, the farmhouse where Anita Garibaldi died in Mandriole, is in the countryside between Casal Borsetti and Sant’Alberto, just south of the lagoons of Comacchio. Garibaldi stumbled across the farmhouse while looking for shelter for him and Anita as they made their escape across Romagna. The building now houses an exhibition of relics and mementoes of Garibaldi’s flight through the area. There is a replica of Anita’s death bed, as the original one was burnt during the Nazi occupation of Italy during World War II, and there are two paintings dedicated to her. A memorial stone marks the site of her original burial place near the farmhouse. 

The tomb of Anita Garibaldi on the Gianicolo
hill in Rome, topped by an equestrian statue

Travel tip:

The Gianicolo, or Janiculum, one of the hills outside the walls of ancient Rome, has monuments to many Italian patriots who fought during the Risorgimento for the unification of Italy. It is regarded as one of the best locations to enjoy a scenic view of the centre of the city, with its domes and bell towers. When Anita’s statue was erected there in 1932, the event was celebrated with a three-day commemoration ceremony. On the first day, Anita’s remains were brought to Rome, on the second day, her remains were interred in the base of the monument built in her memory, which was placed near the equestrian statue of her husband, and on the third day, her monument was inaugurated officially by Mussolini.

 

Also on this day:

1463: The birth of banker Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici

1470: The birth of noblewoman Lucrezia Maria Romola de’ Medici

1590: The birth of Pope Urban VII

1994: The death of politician Giovanni Spadolini

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3 August

Antonio da Sangallo the Younger - architect

Talented Florentine was commissioned by the Popes

Antonio da Sangallo the Younger, who left his mark on Rome during the Renaissance, died on this day in 1546 in Terni in Umbria.  Sangallo was the chief architect on St Peter’s Basilica from 1520 onwards and built many other beautiful churches and palaces in the city and throughout the Papal States.  He was born Antonio Cordiani in Florence in 1484. His grandfather had been a woodworker and his uncles, Giuliano and Antonio da Sangallo, were architects.  The young man followed his uncles to Rome to pursue a career in architecture and took the name Sangallo himself.  He became an assistant to Donato Bramante, for whom he prepared sketches. Recognising his talent, Bramante gave Sangallo projects to complete with no more than an outline of the design and motifs.  Sangallo’s first major commission was for the Church of Santa Maria di Loreto in 1507. Read more…

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Francesco Ferruccio - military leader

Florentine soldier celebrated in Italy’s national anthem 

Francesco Ferruccio, the military leader whose heroic attempt to defend Florence against the powerful army of the Holy Roman Empire is recalled in Italy’s national anthem, died on the battlefield on this day in 1530.  A Florentine by birth, Ferruccio had been charged with leading the army of the Republic of Florence as the city came under attack during the War of the League of Cognac, when the Pope Clement VII connived with the emperor Charles V to overthrow the republic and restore power in Florence to his own family, the Medici.  Despite being outnumbered, Ferruccio’s soldiers engaged the Imperial forces at Gavinana, just outside Florence, killed their leader and drove them back, only for the enemy to be reinforced by the arrival of 2,000 German mercenaries under the leadership of the condottiero, Fabrizio Maramaldo.  Read more...

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Omero Antonutti - actor and voice dubber

Narrator of Oscar-winning Life is Beautiful had long career

The actor Omero Antonutti, who acted in around 60 films and was the Italian voice of many international stars, was born on this day in 1935 in Basiliano, a village about 13km (eight miles) west of the city of Udine in the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region of northeast Italy.   His most acclaimed performance came in Padre padrone, a 1977 film directed by Paolo and Vittorio Taviani, a Palme d’Or winner at Cannes that was considered by many critics to be the co-directing brothers’ finest work.  Antonutti worked with the Taviani brothers again on La notte di San Lorenzo (1982), which won the Grand Prix du Jury at Cannes, and Kaos (1984), in which he took the part of the playwright Luigi Pirandello in a film based on some of Pirandello’s own short stories.  He was often asked to portray significant figures in dramatisations of real-life events. Read more…

La Scala - opera and ballet theatre

First night at the world’s most famous opera house

Milan’s Teatro alla Scala was officially inaugurated on this day in 1778.  Known to Italians simply as La Scala, the theatre has become the leading opera house in the world and many famous artists have appeared there. A fire had destroyed the Teatro Regio Ducale, which had previously been the home of opera in Milan. A group of 90 wealthy patrons, the owners of private boxes in the theatre, wrote to Archduke Ferdinand of Austria-Este asking that a new theatre be built.  The new theatre was built on the site of the former Church of Santa Maria alla Scala, which is how the theatre got its name. The church was deconsecrated and demolished to make way for the theatre.  With the cost of the project met by the 90 patrons, who paid in advance for boxes, the new theatre was designed by neoclassical architect Giuseppe Piermarini and officially opened on August 3, 1778. Read more…

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Imperia Cognati - courtesan

Prostitute who became a celebrity

Imperia Cognati, who acquired celebrity status in Rome in the early 16th century as a courtesan to a number of rich and powerful figures, was born on this day in 1486.  Courtesans were originally the female companions of courtiers of the papal court, whose duties required them to be educated and familiar with etiquette, so that they could participate in the formalities of court life and in polite conversation.  In time, however, in some cases their companionship became more intimate and they became the mistresses of their courtiers, who in the papal court were clerics not permitted to marry. Courtesans were often the companions of several clients. They were in effect a new class of prostitute, refined and educated enough to hold their own in polite society. Cognati was the companion of Agostino Chigi, a Sienese banker closely associated with Pope Alexander VI. Read more…

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Book of the Day: The Making of St. Peter's Basilica and The Transformation of Rome, by Francesco Bonavita

The Making of St. Peter's Basilica and the Transformation of Rome captures the awe-inspiring story of one of the world's greatest architectural and spiritual landmarks. St. Peter's Basilica is a testament not only to the endurance of Christian faith but also to humanity's creative spirit and resilience through times of hardship, persecution, and triumph.  The book begins with the Basilica's origins alongside a Roman arena and ancient necropolis, tracing its early transformation under Emperor Constantine and the evolving vision of subsequent leaders. As the first millennium of Christianity unfolded, popes and emperors contributed to its structure, shaping both the building and the Christian narrative itself. In the early Renaissance, a new ambition to revive and expand St. Peter's inspired not only a massive restoration but a revolutionary urban renewal movement. Artistic visionaries - Bramante, Raphael, Michelangelo, Bernini and others - brought this masterpiece to life, making it an enduring wonder of the world and a symbol of both faith and artistic ingenuity.

Francesco Bonavita, a native of Rome, is a distinguished scholar and educator with a deep background in the Italian Renaissance, particularly the Mannerist movement in art. He has written numerous works on Italian culture and second language pedagogy. 

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