10 November

NEW - Clio Maria Bittoni – lawyer

First Lady who supported workers’ rights and victims of domestic violence

Clio Maria Bittoni, a specialist in labour law, who was married to a President of Italy, Giorgio Napolitano, was born on this day in 1934 in Chiaravalle in the province of Ancona in Marche.  Bittoni was working for the League of Cooperatives, specialising in the application of the fair rent law in agriculture, in 1992, when Napolitano was elected as president of the Chamber of Deputies.  She had helped many farm workers to get better conditions but was quoted at the time as saying that it seemed ‘inappropriate’ for her to stay in her role since her adversaries had often been parliamentary committees, and other institutional bodies in Italy.  Her parents were Diva Campanella, a socialist activist, and Amleto Bittoni, who were both opponents of the Fascist regime ruling Italy, and they were officially living in exile at the time of her birth.  Read more…

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Ennio Morricone - film music maestro

Composer who scored some of cinema's greatest soundtracks

Ennio Morricone, who composed some of the most memorable soundtracks in the history of the cinema, was born on this day in 1928 in Rome.  Morricone has written more than 500 film and television scores, winning countless awards.  Best known for his associations with the Italian directors Sergio Leone, Giuseppe Tornatore and Giuliano Montaldo, he also worked among others with Pier Paolo Pasolini, Brian de Palma, Roland Joffé, Franco Zeffirelli and Quentin Tarantino, whose 2015 Western The Hateful Eight finally won Morricone an Oscar that many considered long overdue.  Among his finest soundtracks are those he wrote for Leone's 'Dollars' trilogy in the 1960s, for the Leone gangster epic Once Upon a Time in America two decades later, for Joffé's The Mission and De Palma's The Untouchables.  Read more…

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Gaetano Bresci - assassin

Anarchist who gunned down a king

Gaetano Bresci, the man who assassinated the Italian king Umberto I, was born on this day in 1869 in Coiano, a small village near Prato in Tuscany.  He murdered Umberto in Monza, north of Milan, on July 29, 1900, while the monarch was handing out prizes at an athletics event.  Bresci mingled with the crowd but then sprang forward and shot Umberto three or four times with a .32 revolver.  Often unpopular with his subjects despite being nicknamed Il Buono (the good), Umberto had survived two previous attempts on his life, in 1878 and 1897.  Bresci was immediately overpowered and after standing trial in Milan he was given a life sentence of hard labour on Santo Stefano island, a prison notorious for its anarchist and socialist inmates.  He had been closely involved with anarchist groups and had served a brief jail term earlier for anarchist activity.  Read more…

Charles Ferdinand - Prince of the Two Sicilies

The heir presumptive whose marriage earned him exile

Charles Ferdinand, the Bourbon Prince of the Two Sicilies and Prince of Capua and heir presumptive to the crown of King Ferdinand II, was born on this day in 1811 in Palermo.  Prince Charles, the second son of King Francis I of the Two Sicilies and Maria Isabella of Spain, gave up his claim to the throne when he married a commoner, after his brother, King Ferdinand II, issued a decree upholding their father’s insistence that blood-royal members of the kingdom did not marry beneath their status.  In 1835, at which time Ferdinand II had not fathered any children and Charles therefore held the status of heir presumptive, Charles met and fell in love with a beautiful Irish woman, Penelope Smyth, who was visiting Naples.  Penelope Smyth was the daughter of Grice Smyth of Ballynatray, County Waterford, and sister of Sir John Rowland Smyth. Read more…

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Lord Byron in Venice

Romantic English poet finds renewed inspiration

Aristocratic English poet Lord Byron and his friend, John Cam Hobhouse, arrived in Venice for the first time on this day in 1816.  They put up at the Hotel Grande Bretagne on the Grand Canal and embarked on a few days of tourism.  But it was not long before Byron decided to move into an apartment just off the Frezzeria, a street near St Mark's Square, and settled down to enjoy life in the city that was to be his home for the next three years.  Byron has become one of Venice’s legends, perhaps the most famous, or infamous, of all its residents.  Tourists who came afterwards expected to see Venice through his eyes. Even the art critic, John Ruskin, has admitted that on his first visit he had come in search of Byron’s Venice.  Byron once wrote that Venice had always been ‘the greenest island of my imagination’ and he never seems to have been disappointed by it. Read more…

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Vanessa Ferrari - gymnast

First Italian woman to win a World Championship gold

The gymnast Vanessa Ferrari, who in 2006 became the first Italian female competitor to win a gold medal at the World Championships of artistic gymnastics, was born on this day in 1990, in the town of Orzinuovi in Lombardy.  Ferrari won the all-around gold - consisting of uneven bars, balance beam and floor exercise - at the World Championships in Aarhus in Denmark when she was only 15 years old. It remains the only artistic gymnastics world title to be won by an Italian woman.  Earlier in 2006, Ferrari had picked up her first gold medal of the European Championships at Volos in Greece as Italy won the all-around team event.  Naturally small in stature, Ferrari was inspired to take up gymnastics by watching the sport on television as a child, when the sport was dominated by Russian and Romanian athletes.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: The Rise and Fall of the Italian Communist Party: A Transnational History, by Silvio Pons 

The Rise and Fall of the Italian Communist Party reassesses the history of Italian communism in international perspective. Examining the Italian Communist Party as a case study in the global history of communism, Silvio Pons considers a wide range of relational and temporal contexts, from the practices of internationalism to the training of militants and leaders, and to networks established not only in Europe but also in the colonial and postcolonial world. Pons focuses on the attempts of the Italian Communist Party to forge an intellectually defensible party programme that combined the international demands of Moscow with the Italians' attempts to develop their own foreign and domestic policies according to their own political circumstances. Following three leaders of the Italian Communist Party (Antonio Gramsci, Palmiro Togliatti, and Enrico Berlinguer) from the First World War to the fall of the Soviet Union, the author considers the broader relationship between communism and Cold War history, the history of decolonization, and the rise of Europe itself as a political category.

Silvio Pons is a professor at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, Italy, and president of the Gramsci Institute.

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Clio Maria Bittoni – lawyer

First Lady who supported workers’ rights and victims of domestic violence

Clio Maria Bittoni pictured with her
husband, Giorgio Napolitano, in 2009

Clio Maria Bittoni, a specialist in labour law, who was married to a President of Italy, Giorgio Napolitano, was born on this day in 1934 in Chiaravalle in the province of Ancona in Marche.

Bittoni was working for the League of Cooperatives, specialising in the application of the fair rent law in agriculture, in 1992, when Napolitano was elected as president of the Chamber of Deputies.   

She had helped many farm workers to get better conditions but was quoted at the time as saying that it seemed ‘inappropriate’ for her to stay in her role since her adversaries had often been parliamentary committees, and other institutional bodies in Italy. 

Her parents were Diva Campanella, a socialist activist, and Amleto Bittoni, who were both opponents of the Fascist regime ruling Italy, and they were officially living in exile at the time of her birth. 

After attending classical high school in Jesi in Marche, Bittoni went to the University of Naples to study Law, where she met her future husband, who was a member of the Italian Communist Party.

After she graduated from university, Bittoni married Napolitano in a civil ceremony in Campidoglio in 1959. They went to live in Rome and had two sons, Giovanni, who was born in 1961, and Giulio, who was born in 1969.

Napolitano became the 11th President of the Italian Republic in 2006 and remained in office until 2015. In her official role as Companion of the President of Italy, Bittoni attended many events, both in Italy and abroad, by his side.

She also became involved in the defence of women’s rights, writing letters to newspapers about the cause, an interest she shared with the US First Lady, Michelle Obama, whom she hosted at the Palazzo Quirinale - the President's official residence - in Rome in 2009.

Bittoni hosted her United States counterpart, First
Lady Michelle Obama, at the Palazzo Quirinale

Bittoni had suffered a serious fracture two years previously when she was struck by a car while crossing Via del Quirinale near the palace.

She personally laid flowers at the Fountain of the Dioscuri in front of the Quirinale in March 2014 on a day dedicated to the victims of domestic violence, when the fountain was illuminated in red to reflect the bloody attacks suffered by victims, whose names were projected on the base of the obelisk.

After many years living in the Quirinale, Bittoni moved to live in an apartment in the Palazzo della Panetteria, the building next to the presidential palace, saying she felt freer of formalities and protocol by living there. 

Bittoni was often seen out and about in Rome, mixing with ordinary people, without any bodyguards. In 2012 she queued with members of the public to visit an exhibition of pictures by Vermeer being held in the stables at the Quirinale and, after she was recognised, insisted on buying a ticket just like everyone else.

After Napolitano’s presidency came to an end in 2015, the couple moved back to their family home in Monti, another district of Rome, where neighbours often saw them walking around without any security escort. 

Clio Maria Bittoni died in September 2024, two months before what would have been her 90th birthday. It was exactly a year after the death of her husband. Like him, she was buried in the non-Catholic cemetery in the Testaccio district of Rome.

The Lazzaretto building in the harbour at 
Ancona was once a quarantine station

Travel tip:

Chiaravalle, where Clio Maria Bittoni was born, is a comune - municipality - in the province of Ancona in the region of Marche, located about 15km (9 miles) to the west of Ancona, which is the capoluogo - the capital - of the Marche region. Ancona lies 280km (170 miles) northeast of Rome, and is one of the main ports on the Adriatic sea. Ancona’s history goes back centuries before the birth of Christ when it was inhabited by an Italic tribe. It was conquered by Greek settlers in 387BC, who developed it and set up industries there, and it was taken by Julius Caesar immediately after he crossed the Rubicon River in 49BC, sparking civil war. The 18m-high Arch of Trajan, built in honour of the emperor who built the city’s harbour, is regarded as one of the finest Roman monuments in the Marche region. Ancona’s harbour contains the Lazzaretto, a pentagonal building constructed on an artificial island in the 18th century as a quarantine station designed to protect the city from diseases carried by infected travellers.

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The tranquil surroundings of Rome's 
non-Catholic cemetery in Testaccio

Travel tip:

Clio Maria Bittoni and her husband, Giorgio Napolitano, are buried in the beautiful, tranquil, surroundings of the non-Catholic Cemetery, often referred to as the English cemetery, in the Testaccio district of Rome. The cemetery lies behind high walls flanked by cypress trees, close to Porta San Paolo and the Pyramid of Cestius, a burial monument that was built before the birth of Christ.  The non-Catholic Cemetery was originally intended for foreigners who had died in Rome and it has become famous as the last resting place of the English romantic poet, John Keats, who died at the age of 25, soon after arriving in Rome, in 1821 . The remains of the Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley were also buried there after he was cremated on a Tuscan beach following his death at sea in 1822 at the age of 29. Due to the limited space available, burial is granted only in exceptional circumstances to illustrious Italians. In 2019, the remains of the writer Andrea Camilleri were interred there, and in 2023, burial was granted for Napolitano, a former communist who declared himself not to be an opponent of the Catholic Church but a non-believer. Bittoni was laid to rest there in 2024.

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More reading:

Giorgio Napolitano, the non-Catholic and Communist who rose to high office 

How Laura Matarella took the place of her late mother as First Lady

The first Sicilian to be made President of the Republic of Italy

Also on this day:

1811: The birth of Charles Ferdinand, Prince of the Two Sicilies

1816: Lord Byron arrives in Venice

1869: The birth of King Umberto I's assassin, Gaetano Bresci

1928: The birth of film music composer Ennio Morricone

1990: The birth of gymnast Vanessa Ferrari

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9 November

Niccolò III d’Este – Marquis of Ferrara

Soldier who built up the importance of home city

The military leader - condottiero in Italian - Niccolò III d’Este was born on this day in 1383 in Ferrara.  He was the son of Alberto d’Este, Marquis of Ferrara, and became ruler of the city when he was just ten years old on the death of his father, under the protection of Venice, Florence and Bologna.  A relative, Azzo d’Este, who was working for Gian Galeazzo Visconti, Duke of Milan, tried to attack Ferrara, but Venice, Florence and Bologna helped Niccolò see off the challenge to his rule.  In 1403 Niccolò joined the league formed against the Duke of Milan and was appointed Captain General of the Papal Army by Pope Boniface IX.  At the age of 13, Niccolò was married for the first time, to Gigliola da Carrara, the daughter of Francesco II da Carrara, Lord of Padua.  Although his first marriage was childless, he fathered an illegitimate son, Ugo, in 1405.  Read more…

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Giuseppe Panini - entrepreneur

News vendor who started football sticker craze

Giuseppe Panini, the entrepreneur and businessman who created an international craze for collecting football stickers, was born on this day in 1921 in the village of Pozza in Emilia-Romagna, not far from Modena.  Since the stickers’ first appearance in Italy in the 1960s and the first World Cup sticker album in 1970 took the concept into an international marketplace, Panini has grown into a publishing company that in 2017 generated sales in excess of €536 million ($643 million US) in more than 120 countries, employing more than 1000 people worldwide.  Giuseppe Panini, who died in 1996, grew immensely wealthy as a result, selling the business in 1989 for a sum said to be around £96 million, the equivalent of £232 million (€266 million; $303 million US) today, after which he spent the remaining years of his life building on an already established reputation for philanthropy.  Read more…

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Alessandro Del Piero – World Cup winner

Former striker is all-time record goalscorer for Juventus

The retired footballer Alessandro Del Piero, who won the World Cup with Italy in 2006 and holds the club records for most goals (290) and most appearances (705) for Juventus, was born on this day in 1974 in Conegliano in the Veneto.  Regarded as one of Italy’s greatest players, his overall goals tally of 346 in Italian football in all competitions has been bettered only once in history, by Silvio Piola, who was a member of Italy’s winning team in the 1938 World Cup and who scored 390 goals in his career.  Del Piero also finished his career having scored at least one goal in every competition in which he took part.  Del Piero was a member of six Serie A title-winning Juventus teams between 1995 and 2012 and would have had eight winner’s medals had the club not been stripped of the 2005 and 2006 titles due to the so-called Calciopoli corruption scandal.  Read more…

The rebuilding of Cervia

Historic town is now a popular seaside resort

Pope Innocent XII, as Head of the Papal States, signed a document ordering the rebuilding of the town of Cervia in the Emilia-Romagna region, on this day in 1697.  It was the second time in its history that Cervia had been moved and rebuilt and therefore it has become known as ‘the town of three sites’.  Present day Cervia, in the province of Ravenna, is a popular seaside resort with a 9km (5.5 miles) stretch of sandy beaches along the Adriatic coast, about 30km (19 miles) north of Rimini. The town was originally known as Ficocle and was probably of Greek origin. It lay near the coast halfway between what is often referred to as New Cervia and the city of Ravenna.  However, the town of Ficocle was completely destroyed in 709 as punishment for being an ally of Ravenna and therefore against Byzantium. It was later rebuilt in a safer location.  Read more…

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Piero Cappuccilli - operatic baritone

Singer highly respected for interpretation of Verdi roles

Piero Cappuccilli, regarded during a 41-year opera career as one of the finest Italian baritones of the late 20th century, was born on this day in 1926 in Trieste, in the far northeast corner of the peninsula.  Although not exclusively, Cappuccilli’s focus was predominantly the work of Italian composers, in particular Giuseppe Verdi, in whose operas he sang 17 major roles.  He sang at many of the world’s great opera houses, travelling to South America and the United States, where he made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York as Giorgio Germont in Verdi’s La traviata in 1960 and had a particular association with the Lyric Opera in Chicago, where he made his first appearance in 1969 as Sir Richard Forth in Bellini's I puritani and returned many times before his farewell performances there in 1986.  Read more…

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Enrico De Nicola - politician

Italy’s ‘reluctant’ first president

The man who was to become the first president of the Republic of Italy was born on this day in Naples in 1877.  Enrico De Nicola studied law at Naples University and went on to become one of the most esteemed criminal lawyers in Italy. He also worked as a journalist writing about legal issues.  He later joined the Italian liberal party and was elected to the Camera dei Deputati (Chamber of Deputies) in 1909.  He held minor government posts until the advent of Fascism when he retired from public life to concentrate on his legal career.   De Nicola took an interest in politics again after Mussolini’s fall from power in 1943.  At first King Victor Emmanuel III tried to extricate the monarchy from its association with the Fascists and his son Umberto became Lieutenant General of the Realm and took over most of the functions of the Sovereign. Read more…

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Book of the Day: The Italian City Republics, by Trevor Dean and Daniel Waley

The Italian City Republics illustrates how, from the 11th century onwards, many Italian towns achieved independence as political entities, unhindered by any centralising power. Until the 14th century, when the regimes of individual ‘tyrants’ took over in most towns, these communes were the scene of a precocious, and very well-documented, experiment in republican self-government.  In this new edition, Trevor Dean has expanded the book’s treatment of women and gender, the early history of the communes and the lives of non-élites. Focusing on the typical medium-sized towns rather than the better-known cities, the authors draw on a rich variety of contemporary material, both documentary and literary, to portray the world of the communes, illustrating the patriotism and public spirit as well as the equally characteristic factional strife which was to tear them apart. Discussion of the artistic and social lives of the inhabitants shows how these towns were the seedbed of the cultural achievements of the early Renaissance. 

Trevor Dean is Emeritus Professor at Roehampton University in London. His first book was on the city of Ferrara and its rulers in the 14th-15th centuries. He has since written numerous books and studies on crime, policing and criminal justice in late medieval Italy. The late Daniel Waley was Professor of Medieval History at the London School of Economics until 1972, when he became Keeper of Manuscripts at the British Library until his retirement in 1986. 

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8 November

Andrea Appiani - painter

The master of the fresco technique became court painter to Napoleon

Neoclassical artist Andrea Appiani, who was chosen to paint for the Emperor Napoleon during the time in which he ruled Italy, died on this day in 1817 in Milan.  He is remembered for his fine portraits of some of the famous people of the period, including Napoleon, the Empress Joséphine, and the poet, Ugo Foscolo. He is also well regarded for his religious and classical frescoes.  Born in Milan in 1754, Appiani was intended for a career in medicine, to follow in his father’s footsteps, but he went into the private academy of the painter Carlo Maria Guidici instead, where he received instruction in drawing and copying from sculpture and paintings.  He then joined the class of the fresco painter Antonio de Giorgi at the Ambrosiana picture gallery in Milan and he spent time in the studio of Martin Knoller where he learnt more about painting in oils.  Read more…

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Sandro Mazzola - footballer

Tragedy instilled determination to succeed

The footballer Sandro Mazzola, widely regarded as one of Italy’s greatest players after a glittering career with Internazionale of Milan and the Italian national team, was born on this day in 1942 in Turin.  A forward or attacking midfield player with all the attributes of the world’s best players, Mazzola won four Serie A titles and two European Cups for Inter-Milan, largely under the coaching of Helenio Herrero. His goals tally in Serie A games alone was 116 in 417 appearances. He was capped 70 times by the national team, part of the side that won the 1968 European championships and reached the World Cup final in 1970.  Mazzola always saw his success as a tribute to his father, Valentino, a brilliant player who was captain of the Torino team that was almost entirely wiped out in the Superga air disaster of 1949. Read more…  

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Salvatore Cascio - actor

Child star of classic movie Cinema Paradiso

The actor Salvatore Cascio, who earned fame through his starring role in the Oscar-winning movie Cinema Paradiso, was born on this day in 1979 in Palazzo Adriano, a small town in a mountainous area of western Sicily.  In Guiseppe Tornatore’s nostalgic 1988 drama, Cascio was the eight-year-old child chosen to play the part of the the film’s central character as a small boy in a Sicilian village who loves to watch films at his local cinema and develops a friendship with the cinema’s grumpy but good-hearted projectionist, Alfredo.  His performance was so charming and captivating it won him the prize for best actor in a supporting role at the 1990 BAFTAs. He remains the only Italian to have won such an award. Roberto Benigni, star and director of the 1997 film Life is Beautiful, is the only Italian to have won a BAFTA as best actor.  Read more…

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Francesco Molinari – golfer

Second win in Italian Open gave him unique status

Francesco Molinari, one of two golfing brothers who have advanced the cause of the sport in Italy more than anyone in the modern era, was born on this day in 1982 in Turin.  He and Edoardo, who is 21 months’ his senior, won the Mission Hills World Cup in China in 2009, the first time Italy had won the two-player team event.  And when he sank a 5ft (1.5m) putt to beat the Masters champion Danny Willett to win the Italian Open in Monza in September 2016, Francesco became the first Italian to win his country’s open championship twice since it became part of the European tour in 1972.  He had won it for the first time in 2006 at the Castello di Tolcinasco course just outside Milan, which gave him his first European tour victory at the age of 23 and made him the first Italian to win the tournament since Massimo Mannelli in 1980.  Read more…

Virna Lisi - actress

Screen siren turned back on glamour roles to prove talent

The actress Virna Lisi, born on this day in 1936, might have become the new Marilyn Monroe if she had allowed Hollywood to shape her career in the way the movie moguls had planned.  She was certainly blessed with all the physical attributes to fulfil their commercial ambitions - no less a screen goddess than Brigitte Bardot called her 'the most beautiful woman in the world' - but decided she was too good an actress to be typecast as mere window dressing or eye candy and ultimately rejected their advances.  In time she proved to herself that she made the right decision when her portrayal of the manipulative Catherine de' Medici, the Italian who was Queen of France between 1547 and 1559, in Patrice Chéreau’s 1994 film La Reine Margot won her three awards - Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival, a César (the French equivalent of an Oscar) and the Italian film critics' award, the Nastro d'Argento (Silver Ribbon).  Read more…

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Francis I of the Two Sicilies

Death of the king who failed to impress Lady Blessington 

Francis I died in Naples on this day in 1830 after having been King of the Two Sicilies for five years.  The Two Sicilies was the largest of all the Italian states before unification, originally formed as a union between the Kingdom of Sicily and the Kingdom of Naples.  It lasted until 1860 when it was annexed by the Kingdom of Sardinia, which became Italy in 1861.  The Two Sicilies originated when the Kingdom of Sicily was divided in 1283. The King at the time lost the island of Sicily but kept control of his part of southern Italy, which was also referred to as Sicily. The Two Sicilies had capitals in Palermo and Naples.  After Francis succeeded his father Ferdinand I in 1825 he took little part in government and lived with his mistresses in constant fear of assassination.  He is remembered for getting the Austrian occupation force removed from Naples. Read more…

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Paolo Taviani - film director

Half of a successful partnership with brother Vittorio

The film director Paolo Taviani, the younger of the two Taviani brothers, whose work together won great acclaim and brought them considerable success in the 1970s and 80s in particular, was born on this day in 1931 in San Miniato, Tuscany.  With his brother Vittorio, who was two years his senior and died in April of this year, he wrote and directed more than 20 films.  Among their triumphs were Padre Padrone (1977), which won the Palme d’Or and the International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI) prize at the Cannes Film Festival, La notte di San Lorenzo (The Night of the Shooting Stars) 1982, which won the Grand Prix du Jury at Cannes, and Caesar Must Die (2012), which won the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival.  The brothers famously would work in partnership, directing alternate scenes. Read more…

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Book of the Day: Europe Under Napoleon, by Michael Broers

Napoleon Bonaparte dominated the public life of Europe like no other individual before him. Not surprisingly, the story of the man himself has usually swamped the stories of his subjects. This book looks at the history of the Napoleonic Empire from an entirely new perspective- that of the ruled rather than the ruler. Michael Broers concentrates on the experience of the people of Europe - particularly the vast majority of Napoleon's subjects who were neither French, nor willing participants in the great events of the period - during the dynamic but short-lived career of Napoleon, when half the European continent fell under his rule. In a new edition of his highly acclaimed Europe Under Napoleon, Broers weaves together a myriad of regional experiences to produce a social history of the Napoleonic Empire with a truly panoramic scope.

Michael Broers is Professor of Western European History at the University of Oxford, UK. He is the author of several books about revolutionary and Napoleonic Europe, including the two-volume biography Napoleon (2014 and 2018); Napoleon's Other War: Bandits, Rebels and their Pursuers in the Age of Revolutions (2010); and The Napoleonic Empire in Italy, 1796-1814 (2005).

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