Elena Cornaro Piscopia – philosopher

First woman to graduate from a university

An 18th century portrait of Elena Cornaro
Piscopia, which is owned by Biblioteca
 Ambrosiana in Milan

Elena Cornaro Piscopia became the first woman to receive an academic degree from a university on this day in 1678, it is believed, in Padua.

She was awarded her degree in philosophy at a special ceremony in the Duomo in Padua in the presence of dignitaries from the University of Padua and guests from other Italian universities.

Piscopia was born in a palazzo in Venice in 1646. Her father had an important post at St Mark’s and he was entitled to accommodation in St Mark’s Square.

On the advice of a priest who was a family friend, she was taught Latin and Greek when she was a young child. She was proficient in both languages by the time she was seven. She then went on to master other languages as well as mathematics, philosophy and theology.

The Duomo in Padua, where Elena Cornaro Piscopia received
her degree in a special ceremony in 1678

Her tutor wanted her to study for a degree in theology at Padua University but the Bishop of Padua refused to allow it because she was female, although he allowed her to study philosophy instead.

On the day of her degree ceremony Piscopia demonstrated her brilliance in front of the specially invited audience by explaining difficult passages from Aristotle in faultless Latin.

She received congratulations from the distinguished audience and the laurel wreath was placed on her head.

Piscopia died in 1685 in Padua and her academic writings were published a few years later.

Travel tip:

The University of Padua, established in 1222, is one of the oldest in the world. The main building is Palazzo del Bò in Via 8 Febbraio in the centre of the city. The building used to house the medical faculty and it is possible to take a guided tour of the building and see the lectern used by Galileo when he taught there between 1592 and 1610. 

The Basilica of St Anthony in Padua

Travel tip:

The city of Padua - or Padova - in the Veneto region of northern Italy is best known for the frescoes by Giotto that adorn the Scrovegni Chapel and for the vast 13th-century Basilica of St. Anthony, notable for its Byzantine-style domes. The old part of the town has arcaded streets and many cafes. 


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Battle of Solferino

Suffering of soldiers led to the founding of the Red Cross

A scene from the Battle of Solferino painted by the
Swiss-born Italian artist Carlo Bossoli

The Battle of Solferino took place on this day in 1859 south of Lake Garda between Milan and Verona.

It was the last battle in world history where all the armies were under the personal command of their monarchs.

The French army under Napoleon III was allied with the Sardinian army commanded by Victor Emmanuel II. Together, they were victorious against the Austrian army led by Emperor Franz Joseph I.

The battle lasted more than nine hours and resulted in thousands of deaths on both sides.

The Austrians were forced to retreat and it was a crucial step towards the eventual unification of Italy under an Italian King.

Jean-Henri Dunant, a Swiss businessman, toured the battlefield afterwards and was horrified by what he saw, joining in with the efforts of local people to care for the injured.

Greatly moved by the suffering of the thousands of wounded and dying soldiers, he wrote a book about what he had seen and set about establishing the International Red Cross.

This battle is also referred to as the Battle of Solferino and San Martino as there was fighting near both of the towns.

Travel tip:

Solferino is in the province of Mantua about ten kilometres south of Lake Garda. A chapel, the Cappella Ossuaria, behind the Church of San Pietro in Solferino, contains the remains of about 7000 soldiers. There is also a museum with weapons and memorabilia from the battle.

The harbour at Desenzano del Garda

Travel tip:

San Martino della Battaglia, where the Austrians took a pounding from Victor Emanuel II’s troops, is close to the lovely resort of Desenzano del Garda, at the foot of Lake Garda. Desenzano is a good base for a holiday as a boat service links it with other pretty resorts on the lake, such as Sirmione, Bardolino and Peschiera.

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Francesca Schiavone – tennis player

First Italian woman to win a Grand Slam

Francesca Schiavone

French Open tennis winner Francesca Schiavone was born on this day in 1980 in Milan.

When she won her title at Roland Garros in 2010 she became the first Italian woman to win a Grand Slam event in singles. She was the runner-up in the French Open final the following year.

To date she is also the last one-handed backhand player to win a Grand Slam title on the women’s tour.

Schiavone has won six titles on the WTA tour and has also been the runner up in events 11 times.

Her highest career ranking is World Number Four, which she achieved in January 2011.

She has helped Italy win the Federation Cup in 2006, 2009 and 2010 and she has had the most wins for the Italian team.

She also appeared in the women’s doubles final at the 2008 French Open.

At the 2016 French Open in May it was mistakenly announced that Schiavone was retiring from tennis after she was defeated in the first round of the competition.

She denied it at the press conference after her match, saying: “I will announce when I want to stop.”

Schiavone celebrates her 36th birthday today and is due to compete in the first round at Wimbledon next week.

Milan's magnificent Duomo

Travel tip:

Milan, where Schiavone was born and still lives, is the main city of Lombardy in the north of Italy, famous for its magnificent Duomo (Cathedral), Il Cenacolo, the famous wall painting by Leonardo da Vinci of Christ’s Last Supper, and the 15th century Sforza Castle.

Travel tip:

Milan is also the main industrial, commercial and financial centre of Italy. The business district is home to the Borsa Italiana (stock exchange) and the headquarters of the main national banks. The Borsa is located in Palazzo Mezzanotte in Piazza Affari (Business Square).

More reading:

Is Sara Errani Italy's best tennis player of all time?

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Walter Bonatti - mountaineer

Climber's outstanding career marred by 50-year row

Walter Bonatti, pictured in 1964

Walter Bonatti, the Italian who some would argue is the greatest alpine mountain climber that ever lived, was born on this day in 1930 in Bergamo in Lombardy.

He was the first to complete some of the most demanding climbs in the Alps and the Himalayas, including the first solo climb in winter of the North face of the Matterhorn.

But those achievements were marred for half a century by the bitter row that sprang from the part he played in the 1954 Italian expedition to conquer K2, the 8,611-metre peak north-east of the Himalayas that is the second highest in the world - behind Mount Everest (8,848 metres) - but is regarded as the more difficult climb.

Incredibly fit and able to survive at high altitudes without oxygen, he was already such an accomplished climber at just 24 years of age that he was chosen to join the expedition, which aimed to succeed where five previous attempts over 52 years had failed.

The row stemmed from the decision taken by expedition leader Ardito Desio as the party neared the summit that the more experienced Lino Lacedelli and Achille Compagnoni should be the climbers to make the final ascent, even though Bonatti was in better physical condition than either.  Compagnoni was 39 years old.

Bonatti and the Pakistani climber Amir Mehdi were charged with following behind with oxygen supplies to be delivered to the final base camp, but when they reached the point agreed they found that Lacedelli and Compagnoni had placed the camp at a higher location.

By then it was almost nightfall and too dangerous for Bonatti and Mehdi to reach the relocated final base camp or return to the penultimate one.  He and Mehdi were forced to spend the night in the open, without tents or sleeping bags, at temperatures of minus 50 degrees Celsius.  They survived, setting a record for the highest open bivouac (8,100 metres) but Mehdi lost all his toes to frostbite and spent eight months in hospital.

The imposing K2 mountain in the Himalayas

The following day, as they made their way back down the mountain, Lacedelli and Compagnoni collected the oxygen cylinders and reached the summit.  They were acclaimed as national heroes.

A furious Bonatti accused them of deliberately moving the base camp so that he would not be able to join them in climbing to the summit.  They denied this, insisting the location originally agreed had been too dangerous, counter-accusing Bonatti of using some of their oxygen, which ran out close to the summit.

Bonatti was blamed for Mehdi's plight and for years he was vilified by a substantial part of the Italian climbing community, who preferred to protect the reputation of Lacedelli and Compagnoni and not discredit their triumph.

It was not until 2004, when Lacedelli admitted in a book about the expedition that Bonatti's account was correct, that his name was cleared.  Lacedelli and Compagnoni knew that had he been given the chance, Bonatti would have completed the ascent without the need for supplemental oxygen and his achievement would have overshadowed theirs, so they moved the base camp in an attempt to deter him.

The east and north faces of the Matterhorn

The son of a fabric merchant, Bonatti grew up near Monza in the vast Po Valley. During the war years he spent part of his time with relatives in Gazzaniga, in Bergamo province, and his first climbing experiences were in the mountains close to Bergamo, specifically the Grigne range above Lecco. An adventurer by nature, he took on serious climbs from the age of 18 upwards. His achievements were all the more worthy for the fact that he had a poorly paid job in a steel mill and could not afford expensive equipment.

After the K2 row he found it hard to trust other climbers and set about achieving records on his own.

Among his triumphs were a solo climb of a new route on the south-west pillar of the Aiguille du Dru in the Mont Blanc massif in August 1955, the first ascent of Gasherbrum IV in the Himalayas in 1958 and in 1965 the first solo climb in winter of the North face of the Matterhorn.

Immediately after his solo climb on the Matterhorn, Bonatti announced his retirement from professional climbing at the age of 35 and after only 17 years.

Subsequently, he wrote many mountaineering books and travelled the world as a journalist for the Italian magazine Epoca. 

In his later years, married to the actress Rossana Podestà, he lived in a house above the mountain village of Dubino, close to Lake Como.

He died in 2011 in Rome, where he was being treated for pancreatic cancer.

Travel tip:

Dubino is just a few kilometres from the northern tip of Lake Como in an area of alpine terrain close to the border of Italy and Switzerland.  The area is notable for its spectacular scenery, for speciality foods such as bresaola (cured beef) and bitto, a cheese made from the milk of cows that feed in high alpine meadows.

The marble facade of the Duomo at Monza

Travel tip:

Monza is a city of around 120,000 inhabitants in the Po Valley.  It is best known for its Formula One motor racing circuit but has many notable buildings, including a Romanesque-Gothic style cathedral with a black and-white marble arcaded façade erected in the mid-14th century.

(Photo of K2 by Svy123 CC BY-SA 3.0)
(Photo of the Matterhorn by Camptocamp.org CC BY-SA 3.0)
(Photo of Monza Cathedral by Francescogb CC BY-SA 3.0)

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Pier Luigi Nervi - architect

Striking designs from football stadiums to churches

The architect Pier Luigi Nervi

The brilliant structural engineer and architect Pier Luigi Nervi was born on this day in 1891 in Sondrio, an Alpine town in northern Lombardy at the heart of the Valtellina.

Nervi made his mark with a number of strikingly original designs at home and abroad and was noted both for his innovative use of reinforced concrete and his multi-dimensional designs, which enabled him to create structures that were both strong and elegant.

His major works in Italy include the Palazzo del Lavoro in Turin, the bell tower of the Chiesa del Sacro Cuore in Florence and the Papal Audience Hall at the Vatican City, as well as a number of important sports facilities.

The Stadio Artemio Franchi (formerly the Stadio Communale) in Florence - home of the Fiorentina football club - was one of his first important projects and he designed several stadia for the Rome Olympics in 1960, including the Stadio Flaminio and the Palazzo dello Sport EUR.

Around the world, the UNESCO headquarters in Paris, the George Washington Bridge Bus Station in New York, the Stock Exchange Tower in Montreal, St Mary's Cathedral in San Francisco and the Italian Embassy in Brasilia are among Nervi's legacy.

The son of a postmaster, Nervi graduated from the School of Civil Engineering in Bologna in 1913.

The Stadio Artemio Franchi in Florence

After serving in the Italian army's Corps of Engineering in the First World War, Nervi established his own firm in Rome in 1923. His first all-concrete building was the Augusteo Cinema-Theatre on the Vomero hill in Naples, built in 1927.

It was the stadium in Florence that established his reputation. Opened in 1931, it was built entirely of reinforced concrete and featured a 70-metre (230 feet) tower and a ground-breaking cantilevered roof over the main grandstand.

In 1932 Nervi and a cousin in Rome formed the contracting firm of Nervi and Bartoli and in 1935 they were commissioned to build aircraft hangars for the Italian air force after Nervi's designs won a national competition.

Between 1935 and 1941 he built eight hangars in Orbetello and Torre del Lago in Tuscany and Orvieto in Umbria and was said to be distraught when all eight were blown up by the retreating German army in 1944.

Having worked with a team of architects and engineers on the UNESCO building in Paris, Nervi returned to Italy to work alongside Gio Ponti in helping to create the country's first skyscraper office building, the distinctively tapered 32-storey Pirelli Tower in Milan, which stood at 127 metres (417 feet) and remained the tallest building in Italy from 1958 until 1995.

It was the first of four skyscapers Nervi helped designed around the world.  He was also involved with the 190-metre 48-storey Stock Exchange Building in Montreal and worked with the Australian architect Harry Seidler on the Australia Square Tower and the MLC Centre in Sydney.

The dome of Nervi's Cathedral of St Mary in San Francisco

Nervi's design for the George Washington Bridge Bus Station in Manhattan, famous for the butterfly-like wings of concrete that make up its roof, helped him acquire fame in America, where in 1964 he was awarded that country's highest architectural accolade, the Gold Medal of the American Institute of Architects.

His work in the United States also included the Cathedral of St Mary of the Assumption in San Francisco, notable for its distinctive multi-dimensional dome. Religious buildings to which he contributed in Italy include the concrete bell tower, reminiscent of a pithead or perhaps the framework for a helter-skelter, of the Sacro Cuore church in Florence, and the vast, 10,000-capacity Papal Audience Hall at the Vatican, with its undulating roof.

Nervi's sons, Antonio, a structural engineer, and Mario, an architect, followed him into the family business as he began to wind down his workload.  Alongside his work, he was a professor of engineering at Rome University from 1946 to 1961 and at Harvard from 1961 to 1962.

He died in Rome in 1979 aged 87.

A panorama of the Alpine town of Sondrio

Travel tip:

Sondrio is a small town of around 22,000 people, a base for skiing in the Alps during the winter but famous also for its terraced vineyards producing notable wines such as Sassella and Grumello.  Built on what was originally the site of a Roman military camp, Sondrio is one of the main towns in the Valtellina, a valley that was once an important pass between Italy and Germany.  At the heart of the town is the charming Piazza Garibaldi.

Travel tip:

Two examples of Nervi's work, the Stadio Flaminio and the Palazzetto dello Sport, can be found next to one another in the Flaminio district of Rome, around seven kilometres from the centre.  The Stadio Flaminio has traditionally been the home of the Italian rugby team and is currently undergoing refurbishment.

More reading:

How Marco Zanuso put Italy at the forefront of style

The man behind the Royal Palace in Caserta

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Giannina Arangi-Lombardi – opera singer

Soprano’s superb voice was captured in early recordings

Giannina Arangi-Lombardi

Soprano Giannina Arangi-Lombardi was born on this day in 1891 in Marigliano near Naples in Campania.

She studied singing at the Conservatory of San Pietro a Majella in Naples and made her debut on the stage in Rome in 1920. Arangi-Lombardi sang mezzo-soprano roles for the next three years at theatres in Rome, Sicily, Parma, Florence and Naples.

She then underwent further study and returned to the stage as what is known as a spinto soprano, a singer who can reach the high notes of the lyric soprano but can also achieve dramatic climaxes with her voice.

Arangi-Lombardi’s second debut, this time as a soprano, was in 1923. The first time she sang the role of Aida in Verdi's opera of the same name the audience was stunned by her voice and her fame quickly spread.

She appeared on stage at Teatro alla Scala in Milan for the first time in 1924 singing Elena in Boito’s Mefistofele. The orchestra for her debut performance was conducted by Arturo Toscanini.

She sang regularly at La Scala until 1930 and appeared at many other opera houses in Europe as well as in South America.

She took part in Dame Nellie Melba’s farewell tour of Australia in 1928, when she sang the title role in the Australian premiere of Puccini’s Turandot.

After retiring from the stage in 1938 Arangi-Lombardi taught at the music conservatory in Milan and then later became director of the music conservatory in Ankara in Turkey.

Arangi-Lombardi died in Milan in 1951 a few weeks after celebrating her 60th birthday.

Her voice can still be heard today in the recordings she made of full length operas between 1929 and 1931.

Teatro alla Scala in Milan

Travel tip:

La Scala in Milan, where Arangi-Lombardi appeared regularly, has a fascinating museum that displays costumes and memorabilia from the history of opera. The entrance is in Largo Ghiringhelli, just off Piazza Scala. It is open every day except the Italian Bank Holidays and for a few days when it is closed in December. Opening hours are from 9.00 to 12.30 and 1.30 to 5.30 pm.

Travel tip: 

Milan’s Conservatory of Music (Conservatorio di Musica ‘Giuseppe Verdi’) is in Via Conservatorio, just off Via Pietro Mascagni, behind the Duomo and just a short walk from Teatro alla Scala. 

Read more:

Cecilia Bartoli renowned for interpretations of Rossini and Mozart

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Pier Angeli - Hollywood star

Actress hailed for talent and beauty died tragically young

Anna Maria Pierangeli, the actress who
 became known as Pier Angeli

The actress Pier Angeli, a Hollywood star in the 1950s and 60s, was born on this day in 1932 in Cagliari, Sardinia.

She won awards in Italy and in America at the start of her career, when she was likened by some critics to the Swedish-born star Greta Garbo.

Described by the actor Paul Newman as "the most beautiful Italian actress of the century", Angeli was also a fixture in the gossip columns.  Linked romantically with a number of Hollywood's leading male actors, she dated Kirk Douglas and became close to the celebrated 'rebel' James Dean before marrying another star, the Italian-American actor and singer, Vic Damone.

It would be the first of two marriages.  She had a son, Perry, with Damone but they divorced after four years.  A second marriage, to the Italian composer, Armando Trovaioli, produced another son, Andrew, but they also divorced.

Born Anna Maria Pierangeli, the daughter of an architect, she had a twin sister, Maria Luisa, who would also become an actress.  Her mother, Enrica, used to dress the girls to resemble the American child star, Shirley Temple. The family moved to Rome when she was three.

Her mother wasted little time in enrolling the girls for stage school as soon as they were old enough and Anna Maria was only 16 when she enjoyed the big break that would shape her career.  Hanging out on the fashionable Via Veneto, she was spotted by the Italian actor, Vittorio de Sica, and recommended for a role in his upcoming film, Domani e Troppo Tardi (Tomorrow is Too Late).

Playing the part of Marisa in a tale of two star-crossed adolescent lovers, she won the Best Actress award from the Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists.  Soon, Hollywood beckoned.

Again, she was a hit from the start, winning a Golden Globe for Most Promising Female Newcomer for her MGM debut movie Teresa, in which she played the title role and which saw Rod Steiger and John Ericson also make their debuts.  Renamed Pier Angeli by the MGM producer Arthur Loew, it was her performance in this film - much of it shot on location in Rome - that brought comparisons with Greta Garbo.

James Dean, the American actor with whom
Pier Angeli had a relationship

As offers of parts began to flow, so the gossip columnists began to follow Pier Angeli's every move. She was linked with numerous actors, including Marlon Brando, before settling into a year-long relationship with Kirk Douglas after they met while filming The Story of Three Loves.

Douglas was more than 15 years older than Angeli, however, and though they become engaged they eventually broke up, despite a number of attempted reconciliations.

Angeli met James Dean while making The Silver Chalice, in which Paul Newman made his screen debut.  Newman was visited on set by Dean, another young American who was simultaneously filming his debut movie, East of Eden.  The pretty young Italian actress caught his eye and they hit it off immediately.

By now, Angeli's family had moved to California and though she and Dean became inseparable, her mother disapproved of the relationship, preferring the charming Damone, whom Angeli has dated before and had the advantage - in her mother's eyes - of being a Catholic from a New York Italian family.

It is said that Angeli would have married Dean had he proposed, but he was reluctant to commit. He was still inclined to act on impulses. When he announced, suddenly, that he was going to New York and did not return for two weeks, her mother persuaded Pier that he was unreliable and she terminated their relationship.  Soon afterwards, she accepted a proposal from Damone.

In the best melodramatic tradition of screen romances, Dean is said to have sat outside on his motorcycle while the wedding was taking place in a church in Beverley Hills, speeding away noisily as the couple emerged.  Later, after the failure of her second marriage, Angeli confessed that Dean, who would be killed in a road accident a year later, had been the true love of her life.

With painful irony, Angeli would win plaudits in 1956 for Somebody Up There Likes Me, playing the wife of Paul Newman, who took the role of the prize fighter Rocky Graziano that had originally been earmarked for Dean.

Her career at the top was not over.  In 1960 she was nominated for a BAFTA as best foreign actress for her performance alongside Richard Attenborough in the British film The Angry Silence and starred with Stewart Granger in the Biblical epic Sodom and Gomorrah.

Pier Angeli died in 1971 in tragic circumstances at the age of just 39, in an apartment belonging to her former acting coach in Beverley Hills. She had been receiving treatment for a stomach disorder but her death was from an overdose of barbiturates.

Travel tip:

Sardinia's fascinating capital, Cagliari, combines fragments of the past – spanning Carthaginian, Roman, Byzantine, Spanish and Italian eras – with 21st-century cosmopolitanism.  Visitors should concentrate first on the Castello district, the medieval heart of the city built on top of a hill with a view of the Gulf of Cagliari. Built from local white limestone, most of the city walls remain intact and include two towers that survive from the early 14th century.

The Westin Excelsior Hotel on Rome's Via Veneto

Travel tip: 

Rome's Via Vittorio Veneto, commonly known as the Via Veneto, is one of the capital's most famous, elegant and expensive streets. The street is named after the 1918 Battle of Vittorio Veneto, a decisive Italian victory of World War I, and immortalised by Federico Fellini's 1960 film La Dolce Vita, which celebrated its heyday in the '50s and '60s when its bars and restaurants attracted Hollywood stars and jet set personalities.  Some of Rome's most renowned cafés and five star hotels, such as Café de Paris, Harry's Bar, the Regina Hotel Baglioni and the Westin Excelsior are located in Via Veneto.

More reading:

Roberto Rossellini - pioneer of neo-realism

Federico Fellini - great 20th century filmmaker

Rudolph Valentino - tragic star of silent movies


(Photo of Via Veneto by Gobbler CC BY-SA 3.0)

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