29 January

Fire at La Fenice

Oldest theatre in Venice keeps rising from the ashes

La Fenice, the world famous opera house in Venice, was destroyed by fire on this day in 1996.  It was the third time a theatre had been burnt down in Venice and it took nearly eight years to rebuild.  The theatre had been named La Fenice - the Phoenix - when it was originally built in the 1790s, to reflect that it was helping an opera company rise from the ashes after its previous theatre had burnt down.  Disaster struck again in 1836 when La Fenice itself was destroyed by fire but it was quickly rebuilt and opened its doors again in 1837.  The American writer, Donna Leon, chose La Fenice to be the main location in her first novel featuring Commissario Guido Brunetti, published in 1992.  But in January 1996, approximately four years after Leon’s novel, Death At La Fenice, was published, the theatre burnt down again, making front page news all over the world.  Read more…

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Bomb destroys Archiginnasio anatomical theatre

Historic facility hit in 1944 air raid

The historic anatomical theatre of the Palazzo Archiginnasio, the original seat of the University of Bologna, was almost completely destroyed in a bombing raid on the city by Allied forces on this day in 1944.  The northern Italian city was a frequent target during the final two years of the conflict because of its importance as a transport hub and communications centre.  The wing of the palazzo housing the anatomical theatre, built between 1636 and 1638, took a direct hit on the night of January 29.  Although it is unlikely that the university - the oldest in the world - was a specific target, bombing was much less precise 75 years ago and collateral damage was common and often widespread.  As well as its importance in the history of medical research, the anatomical theatre was notable as an art treasure. Read more…

Luigi Nono - avant-garde composer

Venetian used music as a medium for political protest

The Italian avant-garde composer Luigi Nono, famous for using music as a form of political expression, was born in Venice on this day in 1924.  Nono, whose compositions often defied the description of music in any traditional sense, was something of a contradiction in that he was brought up in comfortable surroundings and had a conventional music background.  His father was a successful engineer, wealthy enough to provide for his family in a large house in Dorsoduro, facing the Giudecca Canal, while his grandfather, a notable painter, inspired in him an interest in the arts.  He had music lessons with the composer Gian Francesco Malipiero at the Venice Conservatory, where he developed a fascination for the Renaissance madrigal tradition, before going to the University of Padua to study law.  Read more…

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Felice Beato – war photographer

Venetian-born adventurer captured some of first images of conflict

Felice Beato, who is thought to be one of the world’s first war photographers, died in Florence on this day in 1909.  He was 76 or 77 years old and had passed perhaps his final year in Italy, having spent the majority of his adult life in Asia and the Far East.  Although he was from an Italian family it was thought for many years that he had been born on the island of Corfu and died in Burma. However, in 2009 his death certificate was found in an archive in Florence, listing his place of birth as Venice and his place of death as the Tuscan regional capital.  Beato photographed the Crimean War in 1855, the aftermath of the Indian Rebellion in 1857 and the final days of the Second Opium War in China in 1860, later travelling with United States forces in Korea in 1871 and with the British in the Sudan. Read more…

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Book of the Day: Death at La Fenice (A Commissario Brunetti Mystery), by Donna Leon

The twisted maze of Venice's canals has always been shrouded in mystery. Even the celebrated opera house, La Fenice, has seen its share of death ... but none so horrific and violent as that of world-famous conductor, Maestro Helmut Wellauer, who was poisoned during a performance of La traviata. Even Commissario of Police, Guido Brunetti, used to the labyrinthine corruptions of the city, is shocked at the number of enemies Wellauer has made on his way to the top - but just how many have motive enough for murder? The beauty of Venice is crumbling. But evil is one thing that will never erode with age. Death at La Fenice saw Donna Leon introduce her detective hero Guido Brunetti in what was described as a “ripping first mystery, as beguiling and secretly sinister as Venice herself.” Brunetti has since appeared in 33 novels, the latest of which, A Refiner's Fire, was released in 2024.

A New Yorker of Irish/Spanish descent, Donna Leon first went to Italy in 1965, returning regularly over the next decade or so while pursuing a career as an academic.  Leon has received both the CWA Macallon Silver Dagger for Fiction and the German Corrine Prize for her novels featuring Commissario Guido Brunetti. 

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28 January

Simonetta Vespucci – Renaissance beauty

Noblewoman hailed as embodiment of female perfection

Simonetta Vespucci, a young noblewoman who became the most sought-after artist’s model in Florence in the mid-15th century, is thought to have been born on this day in 1453.  Born Simonetta Cattaneo to a Genoese family, she was taken to Florence in 1469 when she married Marco Vespucci, an eligible Florentine nobleman who was a distant cousin of the explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci.  She quickly became the talk of Florentine society. Soon known as La Bella Simonetta, she captivated painters and young noblemen alike with her beauty.  It is said that, shortly before her arrival, a group of artists had been discussing their idea of the characteristics of perfect female beauty and were stunned, on meeting Simonetta, to discover that their idealised woman actually existed.  It is thought the model for the female figure standing on a shell in Sandro Botticelli’s masterpiece, The Birth of Venus, may have been her. Read more…

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Paolo Gorini – scientist

Teacher invented technique for preserving corpses

Mathematician and scientist Paolo Gorini, who made important discoveries about organic substances, was born on this day in 1813 in Pavia.  He is chiefly remembered for preserving corpses and anatomical parts according to a process he invented himself. His technique was first used on the body of Giuseppe Mazzini, the politician and activist famous for his work towards the unification of Italy.  Gorini was orphaned at the age of 12, but thanks to financial help from former colleagues of his father, who had been a university maths professor, he was able to continue with his studies and he obtained a mathematics degree from the University of Pavia.  He paid tribute in his autobiography to his private teacher, Alessandro Scannini, who he said first inspired his interest in geology and volcanology.  Gorini went to live in Lodi, just south of Milan, in 1834, where he became a physics lecturer at the local Lyceum.  Read more…

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Gianluigi Buffon – goalkeeper

Record-breaking footballer played at top level until 45

Former Juventus goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon was born on this day in 1978 in Carrara in Tuscany.  Widely considered by football experts at his peak to be the best goalkeeper in the world, he was known for his outstanding ability to stop shots.  He holds the record for the most clean sheets, both in Serie A and the national side, and he has won numerous awards.  Now aged 46, Buffon retired from international football after Italy failed to qualify for the 2018 World Cup finals in Russia, having played a record 176 times for the Azzurri, and ended his professional career in 2023.  Buffon, whose nickname is Gigi, was born into a family of athletes. His mother, Maria, was a discus thrower and his father, Adriano, was a weightlifter. His two sisters both played volleyball for the Italian national team and his uncle was a prominent basketball player.  Read more…

Francesco de’ Pazzi - banker

Medici rival at heart of Pazzi Conspiracy

The banker Francesco de’ Pazzi, a central figure in the Pazzi Conspiracy that sought to overthrow the Medici family as the rulers of Florence, was born on this day in 1444.  De’ Pazzi killed Giuliano de’ Medici, stabbing him to death during mass at the Florence Duomo as the conspirators attempted to seize control.  But Giuliano’s brother, Lorenzo the Magnificent, with whom he was joint ruler, escaped with only minor wounds.  Simultaneously, other conspirators rode into the Piazza della Signoria declaring themselves the liberators of the city. Yet the people of Florence were loyal to the Medicis and attacked them.  Within hours, despite Lorenzo appealing for calm, an angry mob determined to exact revenge had hunted down and killed more than 30 conspirators or suspected conspirators, including Francesco.  Read more…

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Giovanni Alfonso Borelli – physiologist and physicist

Neapolitan was the first to explain movement

The scientist who was the first to explain muscular movement according to the laws of statics and dynamics, Giovanni Alfonso Borelli, was born on this day in 1608 in Naples.  Borelli was also the first to suggest that comets travel in a parabolic path.  He was appointed professor of mathematics at Messina in 1649 and at Pisa in 1656. After 1675 he lived in Rome under the protection of Christina, the former Queen of Sweden. She had abdicated her throne in 1654, had converted to Catholicism and gone to live in Rome as the guest of the Pope.  Remembered as one of the most learned women of the 17th century, Christina became the protector of many artists, musicians and intellectuals who would visit her in the Palazzo Farnese, where she was allowed to live by the Pope.  Borelli’s best known work is De Motu Animalium - On the Movement of Animals. Read more…

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Giorgio Lamberti - swimming champion

The first Italian male swimmer to win a World championship gold

Swimming world champion Giorgio Lamberti was born on this day in 1969 in Brescia in Lombardy.  Lamberti won 33 gold medals in the Italian swimming championships, six at the Mediterranean Games and three in the European championships, but the pinnacle of his career came in Perth in 1991, when he became the first Italian male to win a gold at the World championships.  In the 200m freestyle event, which was his speciality, he beat Germany’s Steffen Zesner by just under a second in a time of 1min 47.27 sec.  His success came almost two decades after Novella Calligaris had become the first Italian woman to win a World championship gold when she took the 800m freestyle title.  Lamberti was already a force in 200m freestyle, having two years earlier set a world record for the event of 1:46.69 in winning gold at the European championships in Bonn in 1989. Read more…

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Book of the Day: Botticelli, by Frank Zöllner

This celebration of the life and art of the Renaissance genius presents Sandro Botticelli's complete paintings and offers a comprehensive and thoroughly up-to-date study of his work.  Botticelli is one of the most admired artists of the Renaissance period and his seductive Venus and graceful Primavera are among the world s most recognisable works of art. This catalogue raisonné of Botticelli's paintings offers more than two hundred full-colour illustrations and meticulous scholarship by the distinguished Renaissance art historian Frank Zöllner , described by The Financial Times, when reviewing this book s previous edition, as a fabulous, accessible scholar; his book Botticelli has luscious reproductions and exquisite detail. Presented in chronological order, the facts of Botticelli’s life and career are insightfully discussed against the background of the artistic upheaval that marked the Renaissance period. The artist’s reinterpretations of ancient myths as well as his religious paintings are thoughtfully explored in this sumptuously illustrated volume, which will please scholars and delight lovers of fine art books everywhere.

Frank Zöllner is a German art historian. He is among the leading authorities on Renaissance art, in particular the life and works of Leonardo da Vinci.

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27 January

Giovanni Arpino - writer and novelist 

Stories inspired classic Italian films

The writer Giovanni Arpino, whose novels lay behind the Italian movie classics Divorce, Italian Style and Profumo di donna – later remade in the United States as Scent of a Woman – was born on this day in 1927 in the Croatian city of Pula, then part of Italy.  His parents did not originate from Pula, which is near the tip of the Istrian peninsula about 120km (75 miles) south of Trieste. His father, Tomaso, was a Neapolitan, while his mother, Maddalena, hailed from Piedmont, but his father’s career in the Italian Army meant the family were rarely settled for long in one place.  In fact, they remained in Pula only a couple of months. As Giovanni was growing up, they lived in Novi Ligure, near Alessandria, in Saluzzo, south of Turin, and in Piacenza in Emilia-Romagna. His father imposed a strict regime on Giovanni and his two brothers. Read more…

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Trajan - Roman emperor

Military expansionist with progressive social policies

Marcus Ulpius Traianus succeeded to the role of Roman Emperor on this day in 98 AD.  The 13th ruler of the empire and known as Trajan, he presided over the greatest military expansion in Roman history, the consequence of which was that in terms of physical territory the empire was at its largest during his period in office.  Despite his taste for military campaigns - he conquered Dacia (the area now called Romania), Armenia, Mesopotamia, and the Sinai Peninsula - Trajan was seen as the second of the so-called Five Good Emperors to rule during the years known as Pax Romana, a long period of relative peace and stability.  He was credited with maintaining peace by working with rather than against the Senate and the ruling classes, introducing policies aimed at improving the welfare of citizens, and engaging in massive building projects.  Read more…

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Giuseppe Verdi – composer

How Italy mourned the loss of a national symbol

Opera composer Giuseppe Verdi died on this day at the age of 87 in his suite at the Grand Hotel et de Milan in 1901.  The prolific composer, who had dominated the world of opera for a large part of the 19th century, was initially buried privately at Milan’s Cimitero Monumentale.  But a month later Verdi’s body was moved to its final resting place in the crypt of a rest home for retired musicians that he had helped establish in Milan.  An estimated crowd of 300,000 people are reported to have turned out to bid Verdi farewell and Va, pensiero, a chorus from his 1842 opera Nabucco, was performed by a choir conducted by Arturo Toscanini.  Verdi meant a great deal to the Italian people because his composition, Va, pensiero had been the unofficial anthem for supporters of the Risorgimento movement, which had sought the unification of Italy.  Read more…

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Nerva - Roman emperor

The first of the Five Good Emperors

The Roman emperor Nerva, who was considered by historians to be a wise and moderate ruler, died on this day in Rome in 98 AD, after just two years in power.  Nerva had ensured that there would be a peaceful transition after his death by selecting the military commander Trajan as his heir in advance. Trajan went on to be a great success as an emperor and adopted Hadrian as his son to secure his dynasty. Nerva is consequently regarded as the first of five ‘good’ Roman emperors.  Marcus Cocceius Nerva was born in 30 AD in Narni in Umbria, but he did not become emperor himself until he was nearly 66 years old, having spent most of his life serving under Nero and his successors.  Nerva was part of Nero’s imperial entourage and he played a big part in exposing a conspiracy against the emperor in 65 AD. He then achieved high office under the two subsequent emperors. Read more…

Italy elects its first parliament

1861 vote preceded proclamation of new Kingdom

Italians went to the polls for the first time as a nation state on this day in 1861 to elect a government in anticipation of the peninsula becoming a unified country.  The vote was a major milestone in the Risorgimento - the movement to bring together the different states of the region as one country - enabling there to be a parliament in place the following month and for deputies to declare Victor Emmanuel II of Sardinia as the first King of Italy in March.  The first parliament convened in Turin as Rome remained under the control of the Papal States until it was captured by the Italian army in 1870.  The body comprised 443 deputies representing 59 provinces. Some provinces, such as Benevento, near Naples, elected just one deputy, whereas the major cities elected many more. Turin, for example, chose 19 deputies, Milan and Naples 18 each.  Read more…

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Frank Nitti - mobster

Barber who became Al Capone’s henchman

The mobster who achieved notoriety as Frank Nitti was born Francesco Raffaele Nitto it is thought on this day in 1881, although some accounts put the year of his birth as 1886.  Nitti, who was raised in Brooklyn, New York, where he and Al Capone - his cousin - grew up, would eventually become Capone’s most trusted henchman in the Chicago mob he controlled.  After Capone was jailed for 11 years for tax evasion, Nitti was ostensibly in charge of operations.  Unlike many of the American Mafia bosses in the early part of the 20th century, Nitti was not a Sicilian.  His roots were in the heart of Camorra territory in the shadow of Vesuvius, his birthplace the town of Angri, 8km (5 miles) from nearby Pompei.  Angri was also the home town of Capone’s parents.  Francesco’s father died while he was still a small child.  Read more…

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Marco Malvaldi – crime writer and chemist

Author has mastered the science of detective fiction

Novelist Marco Malvaldi, who has written a prize-winning mystery featuring the real-life 19th century Italian culinary expert Pellegrino Artuso as his fictional sleuth, was born on this day in 1974 in Pisa.  Malvaldi, who is a graduate in chemistry from Pisa University, has also written a travel guide about his home town with the title Scacco alle Torre (Checkmate to the Tower), which has been presented at the Pisa Book Festival. He began his writing career in 2007 with a mystery novel, La briscola in cinque (Game for Five), published by Sellerio Editore. The novel’s protagonist, Massimo, a barista, and the owner of a bar named BarLume, which is a play on the Italian word barlume, meaning flicker of light, is forced into the role of investigator in the fictional seaside resort town of Pineta on the Tuscan coast.  Read more…

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Roberto Paci Dalò – composer and film maker

Music maker coined the definition ‘media dramaturgy’

The award-winning contemporary musician and composer Roberto Paci Dalò was born on this day in 1962 in Rimini.  Paci Dalò is the co-founder and director of the performing arts ensemble Giardini Pensili and has composed music for theatre, radio, television and film.  After completing musical, visual and architectural studies in Fiesole, Faenza and Ravenna, Paci Dalò focused on sound and design and their use in film, theatre and collaborative projects.  He has been a pioneer in the use of digital technologies and telecommunication systems in art and has been particularly interested in performing arts as a meeting point of languages.  Since 1985 he has written, composed and directed more than 30 groundbreaking music-theatre works which have been presented worldwide.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Scent of a Woman, by Giovanni Arpino (Penguin Modern Classics). Translated by Anne Milano Appel

Two soldiers travel across Italy at the height of summer, passing through Genoa, Rome and Naples. One of the soldiers is blind, graceful, gleefully vicious and wears a prosthetic arm; the other, twenty years his junior, is his guide. But as these men drink their way through bars, brothels and train carriages, who is guiding who? Only as they reluctantly approach the blind man's destination, and a stifled love affair, does the purpose of the trip become tragically clear.  The inspiration for two acclaimed films, Scent of a Woman is a lyrical exploration of regret, defiance, and what it really means to see.

Giovanni Arpino was an Italian writer and journalist. Arpino’s debut novel was published in 1952, after which he took up sports journalism, bringing a literary quality to his writing on sport. Arpino also wrote plays, short stories, epigrams and stories for children. Anne Milano Appel is an American translator of Italian literature, who has translated the works of Arpino, Claudio Magris, Paolo Giordano and Goliarda Sapienza among others.  She was awarded the John Florio Prize in 2012 for her translation of Arpino's Scent of a Woman.

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26 January

NEW - Corrado Augias - author, journalist and presenter

TV personality has devoted his life to writing

Veteran journalist and TV presenter Corrado Augias, who is also a best-selling author, was born on this day in Rome in 1935. He has become popular in Italy as the host of many TV programmes, including those featuring mysteries and crimes from the past, such as Telefono Giallo and Enigma. Augias is a prolific writer, his works ranging from crime novels set in the early 20th century, to a series of books about the hidden secrets of Italian and European cities, as well as religious works, and plays.  He was brought up in Rome as part of a family originally from Toulon in France, although his father’s family were of Sardinian ancestry. After studying at Sapienza University in Rome he became a journalist working for L’Espresso, La Repubblica and Panorama. He also worked as a foreign correspondent in Paris and New York for several years.  Read more… 

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Valentino Mazzola - footballer

Tragic star may have been Italy’s greatest player

The footballer Valentino Mazzola, captain of the mighty Torino team of the 1940s, was born on this day in 1919 in Cassano d’Adda, a town in Lombardy about 30km (19 miles) northeast of Milan.  Mazzola, a multi-talented player who was primarily an attacking midfielder but who was comfortable in any position on the field, led the team known as Il Grande Torino to five Serie A titles in seven seasons between 1942 and 1949. He scored 109 goals in 231 Serie A appearances for Venezia and Torino and had become the fulcrum of the Italy national team, coached by the legendary double World Cup-winner Vittorio Pozzo.  In just over a decade at the top level of the Italian game he achieved considerable success and some who saw him play believe he was the country’s greatest footballer of all time.  His life was cut short, however.  Read more…

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Giovanni Lanfranco - painter

Artist from Parma whose technique set new standards

The painter Giovanni Lanfranco, whom some critics regard as the equal of Pietro da Cortona and Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri) among the leading masters of High Baroque painting in Rome, was born on this day in 1582 in Parma.  A master of techniques for creating illusion, such as trompe l'oeil and foreshortening, he had a major influence on 17th century painting in Naples also, inspiring the likes of Mattia Preti, Luca Giordano and Francesco Solimena.  Lanfranco is best known for his Assumption of the Virgin (1625-7) in the duomo of Sant’Andrea della Valle in Rome, the altar fresco of the Navicella (1627-28) in St Peter’s Basilica, the cupola of the Gesù Nuovo church (1634-36) in Naples and the fresco of the Cappella del Tesoro, in Naples Cathedral (1643).  His St Mary Magdalen Transported to Heaven (c.1605), currently housed in the Capodimonte Museum in Naples, is another outstanding example of his work. Read more…

Gabriele Allegra – friar and scholar

Sicilian who learned Chinese to carry out his life’s work

The Blessed Gabriele Allegra, a Franciscan friar who translated the entire Catholic Bible into Chinese, is remembered on this day every year.  He was born Giovanni Stefano Allegra in San Giovanni la Punta in the province of Catania in Sicily in 1907 and he entered the Franciscan seminary in Acireale in 1918.  Gabriele Allegra was inspired to carry out his life’s work after attending a celebration for another Franciscan who had attempted a translation of the Bible into Chinese in the 14th century. For the next 40 years of his life the friar devoted himself to his own translation.  Gabriele Allegra was ordained a priest in 1930 and set sail for China. On his arrival he started to learn Chinese.  With the help of his Chinese teacher he prepared a first draft of his translation of the Bible in 1947 but it was not until 1968 that his one volume Chinese Bible was published for the first time.  Read more…

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Hebrew Bible in print for first time

Bologna printer makes history

The first printed edition of the Hebrew Bible was completed in Bologna on this day in 1482.  Specifically, the edition was the Pentateuch, or Torah, which consists of the first five books of the Christian and Jewish Bibles - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.  Torah, in Hebrew, means 'instruction'.  The book was given that name because the stories within it, which essentially form the opening narrative of the history of the Jewish people, and the interpretations offered of them, were intended to set out the moral and religious obligations fundamental to the Jewish way of life.  The book was the work of the Italian-Jewish printer Abraham ben Hayyim dei Tintori, from Pesaro.  The text consisted of large, clear square letters, accompanied by a translation in the Jewish biblical language Aramaic and a commentary by Rashi, the foremost biblical commentator of the Middle Ages.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Secrets of Rome: Love and Death in the Eternal City, by Corrado Augias

From one of Italy's best-known writers comes an exploration of the Eternal City from a fresh and intriguing new angle. Corrado Augias moves perceptively through 27 centuries of Roman life, shedding new light on a cast of famous, and infamous, historical figures and uncovering secrets and conspiracies that have shaped the city without our ever knowing it. From Rome's origins as Romulus's stomping ground to the dark atmosphere of the Middle Ages; from Caesar's unscrupulousness to Caravaggio's lurid genius; from the notorious Lucrezia Borgia to the seductive Anna Fallarino, the marchioness at the centre of one of Rome's most heinous crimes of the post-war period, Secrets of Rome creates a sweeping account of the passions that have shaped this complex city: at once both a metropolis and a village, where all human sentiment-bravery and cowardice, industriousness and sloth, enterprise and laxity-find their interpreters and stage. If the history of humankind is all passion and uproar, then, as the author notes, for centuries Rome has been the mirror of this history, reflecting with excruciating accuracy every detail, even those that might cause you to avert your gaze.

Corrado Augias is a celebrated author and journalist who has worked as a correspondent for L'Espresso and La Repubblica.

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