Patty Pravo - pop singer of enduring fame

Venetian artist's career has spanned 50 years

Patty Pravo depicted in a magazine publicity
photograph from around 1970

The pop singer Patty Pravo celebrates her 68th birthday today, almost 50 years since she took her first steps on the road to fame with the release of her first single, Ragazzo Triste.

Pravo has recorded 27 albums and 52 singles, selling more than 110 million records, making her the third biggest selling Italian artist of all time.  Her latest album, Eccomi, was released in February of this year following her ninth appearance at the Sanremo Music Festival and she is currently on tour, taking a day off in between appearances in Bari last night and Rome tomorrow.

Born Nicoletta Strambelli on April 9, 1948 in Venice, she grew up in an intellectual environment. Family friends included Cardinal Angelo Roncalli - the future Pope John XXIII - the actor Cesco Baseggio, the soprano Toti dal Monte and the American poet Ezra Pound, who lived in Venice and would take the young Nicoletta for walks and buy her ice cream.  She would spend time too at the house of Peggy Guggenheim, the American socialite and art collector.

Her parents enrolled her to study music at the Conservatory Institute of Benedetto Marcello from the age of 10 but by the time she was 16 she had left Venice for London, lured by what she had heard about the rapidly evolving pop culture.  It was there that she learned about a similarly exciting scene taking hold in Rome, and in particular about a nightclub called Piper, which was where she was to make her name.

Initially taken on by the Piper as a dancer, she was asked by the club's owner, Alberigo Crocetta, if she could also sing and legend has it that he needed only to hear her voice once to recognise her potential.  He introduced her to RCA records, for whom in 1966 she recorded Ragazzo Triste, an Italian cover of the Sonny and Cher song But You're Mine. It was an immediate success and was even played on Vatican Radio, who had never previously aired a pop song.

Now performing under her stage name - she chose Patty because it was a popular American first name and Pravo because it meant 'wicked' - the next two decades were enormously successful.  Her long blond hair and natural beauty gave her a photogenic appeal and she became the feminine symbol of the Italian beat scene.

The cover of Patty Pravo's latest album, Eccomi

She had her first major hit in 1968 with La Bambola, which topped the charts in Italy and five other countries.  It sold nine million copies within a short time of its release and within Italy has acquired a nostalgic resonance that has given it a lasting appeal, featuring in the soundtracks of many films and TV series set in the Italy of the late 60s and 70s. To date its sales exceed 30 million copies.

Pravo changed her musical direction somewhat in the 70s, reportedly feeling trapped by her image as "la ragazza del Piper" - the girl from the Piper club - but struck gold again with the song Pazza idea, which gave her a second Italian number one single.

The 80s and early 90s were less successful.  Her popularity at home declined when she moved to America, especially after she took the decision to pose nude for Playboy magazine, and on her return to Italy she was enveloped in a number of scandals.  She was accused of plagiarism over a song she performed at Sanremo in 1987 and in 1992 was arrested on suspicion of possessing hashish.

But she made a triumphant return to Sanremo in 1997 when her song ...e dimmi che non vuoi morire (...and Tell Me You Don't Want to Die) won the acclaim of the critics and peaked at number two in the Italian charts.

In a recent interview, she insisted she has no plans to retire.  "As long as my health is right, I don't really care how old I am," she said.

Travel tip:

The Piper Club is often described as Rome's equivalent of Studio 54 in New York, a venue that during its peak years was unrivalled as the place to go for those who wanted to be seen and photographed. Located in Via Tagliamento in the Trieste district, an area popular with students and young professionals, it is still in business today and is popular for themed party nights on Fridays with a resident DJ in action on Saturdays.

The Peggy Guggenheim Collection is located in a museum
on the Grand Canal in Venice (Photo: G Lanting CC BY 3.0)

Travel tip:

Peggy Guggenheim died in 1979 but her legacy to Venice remains in the collection of modern art she accumulated, much of which is on display at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, a museum located on the Grand Canal in the Dorsoduro district, which is open to the public from 10am to 6pm.

More reading:

Ligabue - record-breaking rock star

Little Tony - 60s pop star inspired by Little Richard

How bass guitarist Pino Presti became one of the most important figures in the Italian music business

Also on this day:

1454: The Treaty of Lodi ends fighting in northern Italy

1933: The birth of the great character actor Gian Maria Volonté


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Gaetano Donizetti - operatic genius

The day the music died

Joseph Kriehuber's 1842 portrait of
Gaetano Donizetti

A prolific composer of operas in the first half of the 19th century, Gaetano Donizetti died on this day in 1848 in Bergamo in Lombardy.

Donizetti had returned to his native city after a brilliant international career to spend his last days in the Palazzo Scotti in the Città Alta, the upper town.

By then seriously ill, he was looked after by friends in the gracious surroundings of the palazzo until his death. His tomb is in the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore, where it is marked by a white, marble monument.

Donizetti has since become acknowledged as the greatest composer of lyrical opera of all time. He was a major influence on Giuseppe Verdi, Giacomo Puccini and other composers who came after him.

Along with Gioachino Rossini and Vincenzo Bellini, he was a leading composer of the bel canto opera style during the first half of the 19th century. Among more than 70 works, his best and most famous operas are considered to be Lucia di Lammermoor, Don Pasquale and L’elisir d’amore.

In Via Sentierone in Bergamo’s lower town there is an elaborate white marble monument to the composer next to Teatro Donizetti, which was renamed in his honour in 1897 on the centenary of his birth.

Donizetti painted as a schoolboy in
Bergamo in the early 19th century

Born in the Borgo Canale quarter of Bergamo, just outside the city walls, the youngest of three sons of the caretaker of a municipal pawnshop, he trained with the German composer Simon Mayr, the maestro di cappella at the city's cathedral. Mayr helped him win a place at the Bologna Academy at the age of 19.  He was not the most assiduous student, gaining a reputation for missing classes and getting into scrapes, but Mayr's faith in his talent did not waver and ultimately it was rewarded.

His first important success came in 1818 with Enrico di Borgogna at the Teatro San Luca, in Venice. Soon afterwards he moved to Naples, taking up residency at the Teatro San Carlo in 1822 at the age of 25. He stayed there until 1844, producing more than three quarters of his work there.  In 1830 his Anna Bolena, produced at Teatro alla Scala in Milan, carried his fame abroad and two years later came L’elisir d’amore. The year after that Lucrezia Borgia consolidated his reputation in Milan.

However, more than once he found himself at odds with the censors, and in the 1840s began to spend an increasing amount of time in Paris, where the censorship rules were less strict.

Married in 1828 to Virginia Vasseli, the sister of one of his closest friends in Rome, Donizetti's spirits suffered greatly after her death in 1837, soon after the stillbirth of a son. Indeed, none of their three children survived birth.

His own health began to decline soon after he moved to Paris and it was not only physically but mentally that he deteriorated rapidly, suffering periods of near-insanity due to the loss of his cognitive faculties. It was only because of the devotion of a nephew, Andrea, that he was able to return to Bergamo for his final days.

Donizetti's birthplace in Via Borgo Canale
is clearly marked at No 14

Travel tip:

Donizetti’s Casa Natale (birthplace), is in Via Borgo Canale just outside the walls of the upper town. It has now been declared a national monument and is open free to visitors every weekend. You can still see the well from which the family drew their water and the fireplace where meals were cooked, which would also have been their only source of heating.  To reach Donizetti’s birthplace, leave the Città Alta through Porta Sant’Alessandro and go past the station for the San Vigilio funicolare. Via Borgo Canale is the next street on the right and Casa Natale, at number 14, is in the middle of a row of characteristic, tall houses and is marked by a plaque.

Bergamo hotels by Booking.com

The bed in which Donizetti spent his final hours in Palazzo
Scotti is on display in the museum in Via Arena

Travel tip:

A museum dedicated to Donizetti’s life and career is housed in the former Palazzo Misericordia Maggiore, now a musical institute, in Via Arena in the Città Alta. There are many interesting letters, documents and original scores on display along with the bed he died in and the chair he sat in while staying in Palazzo Scotti towards the end of his life. Donizetti’s tomb can be seen in the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore in Piazza Duomo in the Città Alta.

Also on this day:

1492: The death of Lorenzo the Magnificent 

1868: The birth of equestrian pioneer Federico Caprilli

1929: The birth of controversial historian Renzo De Felice

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Giovanni Battista Rubini - opera singer

Tenor was as famous in his day as Caruso

Giovanni Battista Rubini

Giovanni Battista Rubini, born on this day in 1794, was a tenor as famous in his day as Enrico Caruso would be almost a century later, his voice having contributed to the popularity of opera composers Vincenzo Bellini and Gaetano Donizetti.

He was the first 19th-century non-castrati singer to become a major international star after two centuries in which audiences and composers were obsessed with the castrati.  Rubini's exceptionally high voice could match the coloratura of the castrati and he effectively launched the era of the bel canto tenor, which signalled the end of the dominance of the castrati.

Rubini was just 12 when he was taken on as a violinist and chorister at the Riccardi Theatre in Bergamo, not far from his home town of Romano di Lombardia. He was 20 when he made his professional debut in Pietro Generali’s Le lagrime d’una vedova at Pavia in 1814, then sang for 10 years in Naples in the smaller, comic opera houses.

Famed for a voice capable of reaching beyond the range of conventional tenors, particularly in the higher registers, in 1825 he sang the leading roles in Gioachino Rossini’s La Cenerentola, Otello, and La donna del Lago in Paris and was soon regarded as the leading tenor of his day.

After he had premiered Bellini's Bianca e Gernando in Naples the following year, Bellini began to write specifically with Rubini's voice in mind, giving him the tenor leads in Il pirata, La sonnambula and I Puritani.

Rubini was cast in I Puritani with the soprano Giulia Grisi, the baritone Antonio Tamburini and the bass Luigi Lablache. The group achieved popularity together as the “Puritani quartet.”

The four appeared together again in Donizetti's Marino Faliero during the same season, in 1835, then travelled to London with the Irish composer Michael William Balfe for a further round of operatic engagements.

Rubini premiered Donizetti's La lettera anonima, Elvida, Il giovedì grasso, Gianni di Calais. Il paria and Anna Bolena as well as Marino Faliero.

A genuine international star, Rubini alternated during his peak years between the Théâtre-Italien in Paris and His Majesty’s Theatre in the Haymarket, London. 

He toured Germany and Holland with Franz Liszt in 1843 and in the same year performed in St. Petersburg, Russia.  Czar Nicholas I appointed him Director of Singing and made him Colonel of the Imperial Music.

A gateway in Romano di Lombardia featuring the Venetian
Lion of St Mark's. (Photo: Luca Giarelli CC BY-SA 3.0)

In 1845 he retired to his birthplace, the town of Romano di Lombardia, situated about 30 miles (45km) east of Milan in the province of Bergamo, about 12 miles from the city of Bergamo, which is also the birthplace of Donizetti.

He bought a palazzo there, where he died in 1854.  He was hardly an attractive figure, short and pockmarked according to references made at times to his physical appearance. Yet his fame enabled him to conduct numerous affairs and he passed away a month short of his 60th birthday, apparently stricken with a sexually transmitted disease that robbed him of his voice and ultimately his life.

Travel tip: 

Romano di Lombardia is a small town with a population of just under 19,000 in Lombardy, in the province of Bergamo, close to the River Serio and on the railway line between Milan and Brescia. Its history dates back to Roman times and later it was ruled for many years by Venice, evidence of which still exists around the town in symbols depicting the Lion of St Mark's.  The palazzo Rubini bought on his return to Romano became a museum after his death.

The Teatro Donizetti in Bergamo is built on the site of the
Teatro Riccardi, where Rubini sang and played the violin

Travel tip:

The Teatro Riccardi in Bergamo, where Rubini became a violinist and chorister at the age of 12, was destroyed by fire towards the end of the 18th century and rebuilt in brick.  It is now known as Teatro Donizetti.

More reading:

The brilliant career of Enrico Caruso 

The humble roots of Geatano Donizetti

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Raphael - Renaissance painter and architect

Precocious genius from Urbino famous for Vatican frescoes

Raphael's self-portrait, believed to have
been painted in 1506, when he was 23

The Renaissance painter and architect commonly known as Raphael was born Raffaello Sanzio in Urbino, in the Marche region of Italy, on this day in 1483.

Raphael is regarded as one of the masters of the Renaissance, along with Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci.  He was more prolific than Da Vinci and, some argue, more versatile than Michelangelo, and was certainly influenced by both.

The young Raphael was taught to paint by his father, Giovanni Santi, who was a painter for the Duke of Urbino, Federigo da Montefeltro, but his talents surpassed those of his father, who died when he was just 11 years old.  He was soon considered one of Urbino's finest painters and was commissioned to paint for a church in a neighbouring town while still a teenager.

In 1500, Raphael moved to Perugia in Umbria to become assistant to Pietro Vannunci, otherwise known as Perugino, absorbing considerable knowledge of his master's technique and incorporating it in his own style.  From 1504 onwards, Raphael spend a good deal of his time in Florence, studying the works of Fra Bartolommeo, Da Vinci, Michelangelo and Masaccio.

He added more intricacy and expressiveness to his own work. He produced a series of paintings depicting the Madonna including La Belle Jardinière, which features the Madonna in an informal pose with the Christ Child and John the Baptist and is regarded as a quintessential example of the Raphael style.

The School of Athens, in the Stanza della Segnatura in the
Vatican, is regarded by some as Raphael's masterpiece

Raphael moved to Rome in 1508 under the patronage of Pope Julius II to work in the Vatican and a year later began to paint a fresco cycle on the four walls of the Stanza della Segnatura to depict Philosophy, Poetry, Theology and Law. The School of Athens, which represented Philosophy, is regarded by some as Raphael's masterpiece.

He went on to paint three more fresco cycles for the Vatican and more paintings of the Madonna, including the famed Sistine Madonna.

It was while working at the Vatican that he received his first commissions to design buildings after the Pope asked him to succeed Donato Bramante, who died in 1514, as his chief architect. Raphael designed a chapel in Sant’ Eligio degli Orefici, the Santa Maria del Popolo Chapel and part of the new Saint Peter’s basilica, although much of his work was later demolished.

His Palazzo Branconio dell'Aquila was destroyed to make way for Bernini's piazza for St Peter's but the Chigi Chapel, which he designed and painted for the Papal treasurer, Agostini Chigi, survives.

On 6 April, 1520, which was Good Friday and his 37th birthday, Raphael died, having fallen into a fever of unexplained cause.  He had been working on his largest painting on canvas, The Transfiguration, at the time of his death. The unfinished work was placed on his coffin stand at his funeral mass, which was attended by a large crowd, before his body was interred at the Pantheon.

Although he was greatly admired by his contemporaries, it was not until the late 17th century that history began fully to appreciate his talent.  His works were at their most popular in the 19th century.

The Casa Natale di Raffaello in Urbino
(Photo: Sailko CC BY-SA 3.0)

Travel tip:

The Casa Natale di Raffaelo - Raphael's birthplace - can be found in the Via Raffaelo Sanzio in Urbino.  Purchased by Raphael's father, Giovanni, in 1460, it became the property of the Raphael Academy in 1875 and subsequently restored.  Nowadays, it is both a shrine to Raphael and a museum of his and his father's work.  It is open for eight hours daily (except Sundays) from March until October and for five hours from November until February.  For more information, visit www.accademiaraffaello.it

Travel tip:

The four Raphael Rooms form a suite of reception rooms in the palace, the public part of the papal apartments in the Palace of the Vatican. They are famous for their frescoes, painted by Raphael and his workshop. Together with Michelangelo's ceiling frescoes in the Sistine Chapel, they are the grand fresco sequences that mark the High Renaissance in Rome.  For more information, visit www.vaticanstate.va

More reading:

The legacy of Michelangelo -'the greatest of all time'

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Vincenzo Viviani – mathematician and scientist

Galileo follower's name lives on as moon crater

Vincenzo Viviani

Forward-thinking scientist Vincenzo Viviani was born on this day in 1622 in Florence.

Viviani worked as an assistant to Galileo Galilei and after his mentor's death continued his experimental work in the field of mathematics and physics. This work was considered so important that Viviani has had a small crater on the moon named after him.

While at school in Florence, Viviani was given a scholarship to buy mathematical books by the Grand Duke Ferdinando II de' Medici. He later became a pupil of Evangelista Torricelli and worked with him on physics and geometry.

By the time he was 17 he was working as an assistant to Galileo Galilei. After Galileo’s death in 1642, Viviani edited the first edition of his teacher’s collected works.

Viviani was appointed to fill Torricelli’s position at the Accademia dell’Arte del Disegno in Florence after his death in 1647.

In 1660 Viviani conducted an experiment with another scientist, Giovanni Borelli, to determine the speed of sound by timing the difference between seeing the flash and hearing the noise of a cannon being fired from a distance.

As his reputation as a mathematician grew, Viviani started to receive job offers from abroad. As a result the Grand Duke offered him a post as court mathematician in order to keep him in Italy.

Viviani had published a book on engineering and had almost completed a major work on the resistance of solids when he died in Florence in 1703 at the age of 81.

The extraordinary façade of Vincenzo Viviani's former home
in Florence, with a bust of Galileo over the entrance
(Photo: Jebulon CC0 1.0)

Travel tip:

Palazzo dei Cartelloni, formerly known as Palazzo Viviani, in Via Sant’Antonino in Florence, has prominent inscriptions on the façade in Latin celebrating and glorifying the life and discoveries of Galileo Galilei. Viviani had these applied to the front of his home as a tribute to his mentor and there is also a bust of Galileo over the entrance. Today the building is owned by an American art institution.

Travel tip:

Galileo’s tomb in the Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence was not erected until 1737 when his remains were finally allowed a Christian burial. With the help of money left by Viviani in his will for a tomb for himself and Galileo, the scientist was reburied below a bust of himself by Giovanni Battista Foggini. Viviani’s own remains were transferred to the grave at the same time, according to his wishes.

Read more:

Galileo Galilei: the founder of modern science

Laura Bassi: physicist who broke new ground for women

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Daniela Riccardi - leading Italian businesswoman

Head of luxury glassware company trained as a ballet dancer

Daniela Riccardi

Born on this day in 1960, Daniela Riccardi in 2013 became chief executive of Baccarat, the luxury glass and crystal manufacturer that originated in the town of the same name in the Lorraine region of France in the 18th century.

Formerly CEO of the Italian clothing company Diesel, she is one of Italy's most successful businesswomen, yet might easily have forged alternative careers as a dancer or a diplomat.

Born in Rome, she began dancing when she was five and studied ballet for 12 years at the National Dance Academy in Rome, with the aim of becoming a professional dancer.

When it became clear that she would not quite be good enough to grace the world's great stages, she remained determined to have a career that would satisfy her desire to experience many countries and cultures and went to Rome University to study political science and international studies, with the aim of working in diplomacy.

However, during a postgraduate year at Yale University in the United States, she spent a brief period as an intern at Pepsi, where she was so impressed by the energy and leadership of the company's management she realised that this was the career she really wanted.

Back in Italy, she applied to number of multinational companies and was hired by Procter & Gamble, where she stayed for 25 years.  She worked in senior management positions in Europe, South America, Russia and Asia, eventually becoming president of P&G Greater China.  The Financial Times named her as one of the top 50 emerging female managers in the world.

Palazzo della Sapienza, near Piazza Navona,
used to be the home of Rome University

Riccardi left Procter & Gamble in 2010 after turning 50, deciding it was an appropriate moment to make a change.  She considered returning to ballet and putting her money into an international dance academy, or perhaps running an institution such as the New York City Ballet.

Then came an invitation to become CEO at Diesel, the company based just outside Vicenza that founder and president Renzo Rosso began by stitching jeans on his mother's sewing machine. She remained there for three years until the appeal of taking an historic brand and equipping it to survive in the modern world attracted her to Baccarat.

The company, with its headquarters now in Paris, has a 250-year history.  Its products are unashamedly at the luxury end of the market and the precision of the craftsmanship that goes into each piece appealed to Riccardi's tastes.  Her father was a jeweller in Rome and she developed an eye for quality at a young age.

She retains a love of dance, giving private lessons in her spare time, often to employees of the company.

Fluent in French, Spanish and English as well as Italian, Riccardi is married to Juan Pablo, a Colombian she met in Brussels. They have two children, Matteo and Cecilia, and share five homes - apartments in Florida, New York and Rome, a farmhouse in Colombia and a house they are renovating on the island of Ischia in the Bay of Naples.

UPDATE: In 2020, Riccardi became chief executive of Moleskine, the Italian company that specialises in high-end stationery products and travel accessories. 

Travel tip:

Rome University, often known simply as La Sapienza - the wisdom - is one of the oldest in the world, its origins traceable to 1303, when it was opened by Pope Boniface VIII as the first pontifical university.  It was intended to be a place of ecclesiastical studies, a status it retained until 1870, when it broadened its outlook and was adopted as the university of the Italian capital.  A new campus was built near the Termini railway station in 1935 and now caters for more than 112,000 students. Previously, it had been housed in much smaller buildings close to Piazza Navona in Rome's historic centre.

The Castello Aragonese is one of
Ischia's most popular sights

Travel tip:

Ischia is a volcanic island at the northern end of the Bay of Naples, less well known than its neighbour, Capri, but equally beautiful and with a population of around 60,000.  It is famous for its thermal spas, around which much tourism is based.  Among the most popular attractions is the Castello Aragonese, a castle built on rock near the island in 474 BC, to defend the island against pirates.  On the south side of the island, the long sandy beach of Maronti and the picturesque fishing village of Sant'Angelo are well worth visiting.

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Alcide De Gasperi - prime minister who rebuilt Italy

Christian Democrat founder was jailed by Mussolini

Alcide De Gasperi

Born on this day in 1881, Alcide De Gasperi was the Italian prime minister who founded the Christian Democrat party and led the rebuilding of the country after World War II.

An opponent of Benito Mussolini who survived being locked up by the Fascist dictator, he was the head of eight consecutive governments between 1945 and 1953, a record for longevity in post-War Italian politics.

Although Silvio Berlusconi has spent more time in office - nine years and 53 days compared with De Gasperi's seven years and 238 days - the media tycoon's time in power was fragmented, whereas De Gasperi served continuously until his resignation in 1953.

As prime minister, De Gasperi was largely responsible for Italy's post-War economic salvation and for helping to hold the line between East and West as the Soviet Union established its border on Italy's doorstep.

During his premiership, Italy became a republic, signed a peace treaty with the Allies, joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and became an ally of the United States, who in turn provided considerable help in reviving the shattered Italian economy.

De Gasperi took advantage of America's nervousness about the rise of the Soviet-funded Italian Communist Party, negotiating a peace treaty much more favourable to Italy than might have been expected and securing immediate financial help towards rebuilding Italy's damaged infrastructure. In return he promised to mobilise opposition to the Communists.

America then supported De Gasperi's Christian Democrats in the crucial 1948 election not only through financial contributions, some above board but others less so, but also through propaganda, with Italian-Americans encouraged to urge their relatives at home to vote against the Communists.

The tomb of Alcide de Gasperi in the
Basilica di San Lorenzo fuori le Mura
(Photo: Panairjdde CC BY-SA 3.0)

De Gasperi is also credited with introducing social reforms to help working Italians enjoy the benefits of better housing, improved pensions and unemployment insurance.  A pro-Europe politician, he saw that Italy became a member of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), which evolved into the European Union (EU).

The Christian Democrat Party was formed after the fall of Benito Mussolini's Fascists, with De Gasperi the driving force.

Born in Pieve Tesino, a town in the South Tyrol area of Trentino-Alto Adige today but then part of the Austria-Hungary, he was a member of the Austrian parliament for six years before his home region became part of Italy under the terms of the settlement following World War I.

Continuing his political career, he was among the founders of the Italian People's Party (PPI) in 1919 and served as a deputy in the Italian parliament between 1921 and 1924, the period that coincided with the rise of Fascism.

At first, De Gasperi was keen for the PPI to be part of Mussolini's first government but this support wavered as the Fascists began to introduce major constitutional changes and attempted to subdue their opponents with violence and intimidation.

When the socialist politician, Giacomo Matteoti, who had spoken out against the violence, was murdered, De Gasperi himself began to campaign against the Fascists.  In 1927 he was arrested and sentenced to four years in jail.

In poor health, he was released after 18 months following an appeal from the Catholic Church.  In serious financial difficulties, he found work as a cataloguer in the Vatican Library and remained there for 14 years.

For most of this time, he kept a low profile, but after Mussolini's grip on power began to loosen, he resumed his political activity by forming another party, Democrazia Christiana, drawing on the ideology of the PPI, and publishing his Ideas for Reconstruction, after which he was appointed the party's first general secretary.

De Gasperi died in 1954, a year after he resigned as prime minister following his party's failure to secure a majority in the 1953 elections and only two months after stepping down as leader.  He had returned to Trentino but political office in Italy at the time did not bring significant financial reward and it is said that he died with not enough money even to pay for a dignified burial.

Fortunately, the Italian government felt his achievements deserved to be recognised with a state funeral.  His remains are buried at the Basilica di San Lorenzo fuori le Mura in Rome.

The Fountain of Neptune in Piazza Duomo in
Trento (Pic: Matteo Ianeselli CC BY-SA 4.0)

Travel tip:

Trentino-Alto Adige is a region bordering Switzerland and Austria that includes part of the Dolomites, a section of the Italian Alps notable for its sawtooth limestone peaks. Trento, the region's capital, has some notable Renaissance palaces and the region as a whole is dotted with medieval castles.

Travel tip:

The Basilica di San Lorenzo fuori le Mura can be found in Piazzale San Lorenzo, close to the University of Rome and accessible by following the Via Tiburtina to the north-west of the main Roma Termini railway station.  There are bus services along the route.  The Basilica suffered bomb damage during World War II and had to be rebuilt.  The original was constructed in the fourth century, was rebuilt 200 years later and added to at various times subsequently.

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