Amedeo Modigliani – artist

Illness marred the life of creative genius 

Amedeo Modigliani: A photograph taken in
 about 1918, when the artist was 34 years old

Painter and sculptor Amedeo Clemente Modigliani was born on this day in 1884 in Livorno in Tuscany.

The artist went on to become famous for his portraits and his paintings of nudes, which were characterised by their elongated faces and figures.

Modigliani did not receive much acclaim during his lifetime, but after his death his work became popular and achieved high prices.

He was born into a Jewish family and suffered health problems as a child, but began drawing and painting from an early age and begged his family to take him to see the paintings in the Uffizi in Florence.

His mother enrolled him at the art school of Guglielmo Micheli in Livorno where he received artistic instruction influenced by the style and themes of 19th century Italian art.

In 1902 Modigliani enrolled in the school of nude studies at the Accademia di Belle Art in Florence and then moved on to Venice to continue his studies.

Modigliani's portrait of his lover,
Jeanne Hébuterne

In 1906 he moved to Paris, where he set up a studio with Jacob Epstein.

He lived with a beautiful young French art student, Jeanne Hébuterne, from 1917 until he became ill with tuberculosis and died in 1920, at the age of just 35. She threw herself out of a window the day after his death, killing herself and her unborn child.  The two are buried in the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris.

Travel tip:

Livorno, where Modigliani was born, is a port on the western coast of Tuscany, which deals with thousands of cruise ship passengers each day.  The city used to be known as Leghorn in English and there is an English cemetery in Via Giuseppe Verdi, which houses the graves of many former British residents, including the novelist, Tobias Smollett.

Travel tip:

The Uffizi in Florence, where Modigliani asked to be taken as a child, is one of the oldest and most famous art galleries in the world and houses a wealth of Renaissance art treasures. Located in Piazzale degli Uffizi close to Piazza della Signoria and the famous Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, it was originally built as a suite of offices in 1560, but later became used by the Medici family to display their art treasures. For more information, visit www.uffizi.org. 

More reading:

Giorgio Vasari - art's first historian

The merchant's wife immortalised as the Mona Lisa

The wonderful legacy of Tintoretto


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Giorgio Armani – designer

Former army medic forged brilliant career in fashion

Giorgio Armani

Giorgio Armani, who is considered by many to be Italy's greatest fashion designer, was born on this day in 1934 in Piacenza in Emilia-Romagna.

Known for his menswear and the clean, tailored lines of his collections for women, Armani, who celebrates his 82nd birthday today, has become a multi-billionaire.

His original career plan was to become a doctor and he enrolled in the Department of Medicine at the University of Milan but after three years left to join the army. Due to his medical background he was assigned to the military hospital in Verona.

After he left the army, Armani decided to have a complete career change and got a job as a window dresser for La Rinascente, a Milan department store.

He progressed to become a sales assistant in the menswear department and then moved on to work for Nino Cerruti as a menswear designer.

In 1973 Armani opened a design office in Milan from where he worked as a freelance designer for fashion houses. He founded his own company, Giorgio Armani, in Milan in 1975.

La Rinascente in Milan, with its rooftop garden,
as seen from the roof of the neighbouring Duomo

He began producing designs specifically for the United States and his label soon became one of the leading names in international fashion. He also designed costumes for the film industry and suits for many sports teams, including the England football team.

Armani has built up a network of hundreds of boutiques and stores across nearly 40 countries.

He was also the first designer to ban models who had a BMI of less than 18, following the death of a model from anorexia.

Travel tip:

La Rinascente in Milan, where Giorgio Armani once worked, is right in the centre of the city in Piazza Duomo, close to the entrance to the Duomo metro stop. The store, which sells clothes and cosmetics as well as house wares, was nominated the Best Department Store in the World at a Global Department Store Summit in 2016.

Milan's Via Montenapoleone

Travel tip:

The original Giorgio Armani store in Milan is in Via Montenapoleone in the centre of the city. It reopened in April 2015 after Armani and his team of architects had completely redesigned the store to bring out the original architecture of the building. This was part of the 40th anniversary celebrations of the founding of the company.

(Photo of Giorgio Armani by GianAngelo Pistoia CC BY-SA 3.0)
(Photo of Via Montenapoleone by Geobia CC BY-SA 4.0)

More on fashion:

Humble beginnings of shoe designer Salvatore Ferragamo

Guccio Gucci: the lift boy who designed the world's favourite handbags

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Manlio Brosio - NATO secretary-general

Anti-Fascist politician became skilled diplomat

Manlio Brosio

Manlio Brosio, the only Italian to be made a permanent secretary-general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), was born on this day in 1897 in Turin.

Brosio, whose distinguished diplomatic career had seen him hold the office of Italian ambassador to the Soviet Union, Britain, the United States and France, was appointed to lead NATO in 1964 and remained in post until 1971, the second longest-serving of the 13 secretary-generals so far.

Known for his congenial personality, he insisted that others behaved courteously and with respect for etiquette, while conducting himself with self-restraint.  This enabled him to maintain a good relationship with all NATO ambassadors and helped him manage a number of difficult situations.

Some critics felt he was too cautious but his low-key approach is now credited with keeping NATO together during the crisis that developed in 1966 when General Charles de Gaulle, the French president, threatened the organisation's existence by insisting that NATO removed all its military installations from France within a year.

France was one of three nuclear powers among the 15 members of NATO and key to the alliance's Cold War strategic planning but de Gaulle was of the view that the United States was too dominant and feared that France could be drawn into a conflict it did not want.

NATO had to move its headquarters from Paris to Brussels as a result but with Brosio overseeing attempts to reach a solution as France withdrew from the command structure, de Gaulle did ultimately give an assurance that France would participate in the defence of Western Europe in the event of a Soviet attack.

This remained France's position until 2009, when president Nicolas Sarkozy took them back into the command structure.

Brosio always encouraged the member nations to develop a diplomatic strategy towards the Soviet Union rather than simply a military one and his stance led indirectly to the Nixon administration in the United States negotiating with the Soviets on arms control and nuclear weapons limitation.

The monument to Italian partisans killed in battle at
the summit of Monte Grappa

One of six brothers, Brosio graduated with a law degree from the University of Turin, where his studies were interrupted while he served with the Alpine Regiment on Monte Grappa in the First World War, a duty for which he volunteered despite being opposed to Italian involvement.

After the war he entered politics, soon becoming a leading figure within the so-called "liberal revolution", but after being threatened by Mussolini's secret police over what they saw as anti-Fascist activity he returned to practising law.

By this time, the socialist politician Giacomo Matteotti had already been murdered following his denouncement of the Fascists in parliament and it was clear to Brosio and many on the left or centre-left of Italian politics that their lives would be in danger were they to continue.

Following the Allied invasion of Italy in 1943. Brosio joined the resistance movement in the north and became a member of the National Liberation Committee.  As secretary of the Italian Liberal Party he was elected to serve in Italy's immediate post-war governments, ultimately as Minister of War under Alcide de Gasperi.

He began his diplomatic career as Italy's ambassador in Moscow in 1947, moving to London in 1952, to Washington in 1955 and finally to Paris in 1960.

Awarded the Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic in 1955, he was given the United States' Presidential Medal of Freedom by Richard Nixon in 1971.

Married to Clotilde but with no children, Manlio died in Turin after a short illness in March 1980, aged 82.  He was buried in a family tomb in Venaria Reale, near Turin.

Travel tip:

Monte Grappa is a mountain in the Venetian Pre-alps, rising to 1,775 metres, situated some 27km north of Bassano del Grappa, in Vicenza province in the Veneto region.  It was the scene of military action in both World Wars. On the summit there is an extraordinary memorial to those killed there in the Second World War, when Nazi and Fascist troops slaughtered huge numbers of partisans who had sought refuge.  The monument is composed of five concentric circles, laid on top of each other to form a pyramid, containing the remains of 12,615 soldiers. On the top there is the little sanctuary of the Madonnina del Grappa.

The Royal Palace at Venaria Reale

Travel tip:

Venaria Reale is a town of around 35,000 inhabitants situated about eight kilometres north-west of Turin, notable for its Royal Palace, one of the residences of the Royal House of Savoy, built in 1675 for Duke Charles Emmanuel II, who wanted a base for his hunting expeditions.  The name Venaria Reale derives from the Latin Venatio Regia, meaning 'Royal Hunt'.  The house was added to the UNESCO Heritage List in 1997.

(Photo of Monte Grappa monument by Gabriele dalla Porta CC BY-SA 2.0)
(Photo of the Royal Palace at Venaria Reale by Valerio Manassero CC BY-SA 3.0)

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Fourth World Cup for the Azzurri

Triumph in Berlin for Marcello Lippi's team

Fabio Grosso, who scored Italy's
winning penalty in the final

Italy's footballers won the World Cup for the fourth time on this day in 2006, defeating France in the final in Berlin with the outcome determined by a penalty shoot-out.

The victory made Italy only the second nation after five-times champions Brazil to win the World Cup four times or more.  They were successful previously in 1934, 1938 and 1982 and have been runners-up twice, in 1970 and 1994.

Italy reached the final in 2006 by defeating hosts Germany in the semi-final in Dortmund, an attacking match determined by two goals in the final moments of extra time from Fabio Grosso and Alessandro del Piero after goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon had pulled off some stunning saves.

In football terms, the final was a much less captivating spectacle, with each team scoring in the first 20 minutes but unable to find a second goal. It was marred by the sending off of France's Zinedine Zidane in his last competitive match before retiring from the game.

Zidane was shown the red card for head-butting the Italian defender Marco Materazzi 10 minutes into extra time.

The two had been the key figures during the 90 regulation minutes, Zidane having given France the lead with a seventh-minute penalty controversially awarded for a foul on him by Materazzi.

Materazzi equalised in the 19th minute with a header from a corner, scoring his second goal in a tournament in which he had also received a red card, in the round-of-16 match against Australia in which the Italians only just scraped through.

The incident that led to Zidane's expulsion came after the two appeared to engage in a brief conversation on the field.  The French player began to walk away from the Italian but then suddenly turned round and head-butted Materazzi in the chest with such force that he knocked him to the ground.

Italian fans celebrate at the Circus Maximus in Rome, where
captain Fabio Cannavaro and his team showed off the trophy

The final was overshadowed by the sending-off, only the fourth in a World Cup final and there were lasting repercussions.  Zidane was fined by football's international governing body FIFA and volunteered for community service in place of a suspension from football because his retirement meant any ban from playing was meaningless.

Materazzi was also fined and given a two-match ban after he admitted using insulting language to Zidane. However, he always denied that he made comments of a racist nature and after a two-year fight won damages from three English newspapers over allegations that he had done.

In the penalty shoot-out, David Trezeguet's miss for France enabled semi-final hero Fabio Grosso to be Italy's man of the moment again when he then scored his spot kick, giving Italy a 5-3 win.

Italy had lost all three previous World Cup shoot-outs in which they had been involved, including the 1990 semi-final against Argentina when they were hosts, and the 1994 final in the United States, when Brazil won.

On their return to Italy, captain Fabio Cannavaro and his squad met Italian president Giorgio Napolitano and prime minister Romano Prodi, with all of the players, plus coach Marcello Lippi and his technical staff, awarded the Order of Merit of the Republic.

This was followed by an open-top bus parade through Rome to the Circus Maximus, where the players assembled on a stage to show off the trophy.  An estimated 500,000 people turned out to salute their heroes.

The elaborately decorated facade of the Basilica
di Santa Croce, one of many fine buildings in Lecce

Travel tip:

Marco Materazzi hails from Lecce, a city in Puglia renowned for its Baroque architecture and sometimes nicknamed the Florence of the South.  The attractive city centre contains the ruins of a Roman amphitheatre but much of what visitors see was built in the 17th century, including the elaborately decorated Basilica di Santa Croce.

Travel tip:

Circus Maximus is the site of a Roman chariot racing stadium in the valley between the Palatine and Aventine hills, not far from the Colosseum.  The stadium alone could accommodate more than 150,000 spectators and the remains can be seen in what is now a vast area of parkland, regularly used as a venue for open air concerts because of the potential for huge audiences.

More reading:

How Paolo Rossi's hat-trick stunned Brazil

Marcello Lippi - the coach who masterminded 2006 victory

Italia 90: Semi-final agony for Azeglio Vicini

Italia 90: Schillaci matches Rossi by winning the Golden Boot


(Photo of Fabio Grosso by David Ruddell CC BY-SA 2.0)
(Photo of fans in Circus Maximus by Alessio Damato CC BY-SA 3.0)
(Photo of Basilica di Santa Croce by Tango 7174 CC BY-SA 4.0)

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Death of the poet Shelley

Dramatic storm took the life of young literary talent

Portrait of Shelley by Amelia Curran,
painted in about 1819

English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley died on this day in 1822 while travelling from Livorno in Tuscany to Lerici in Liguria in his sailing boat, the Don Juan.

Just a month before his 30th birthday, the brilliant poet of the Romantic era drowned during a sudden, dramatic storm in the Gulf of La Spezia that caused his boat to sink.

His body was later washed ashore and, in keeping with the quarantine regulations at the time, was cremated on the beach bear Viareggio on the Tuscan coast.

Shelley had been living with his wife, the writer Mary Shelley, at a rented villa in Lerici and was returning to his home from Livorno, where he had been arranging the start up of a new literary magazine to be called The Liberal.

He had set sail with two other people on board the Don Juan at about noon on Monday 8 July.  His companions were a retired naval officer, Edward Ellerker Williams, and a boatboy, Charles Vivien. Both also perished.

A friend had watched Shelley’s departure until he was about ten miles out of the harbour and then there had been a storm and he had lost sight of the boat.

Three days later one of Shelley’s friends was informed that a water keg and some bottles from the boat had been washed up on to a beach near Viareggio.

Then the terrible news was received that two bodies had been found in the same area.

Shelley's cremation on the beach near Viareggio as depicted
by the French artist Louis Édouard Fournier

Shelley’s body was able to be identified by the volume of poetry by John Keats that had been found in his pocket.

The poet was cremated on the beach under the supervision of his friend, the poet Lord Byron, and others from his circle out in Italy. Byron is said to have gone for a swim while Shelley’s body burned. He is quoted as saying of Shelley: “He was the best and least selfish man I ever knew.”

Shelley’s ashes were later interred in the Protestant Cemetery in Rome.


Travel tip:

The Protestant Cemetery, where Shelley’s remains were buried, is in the rione (district) of Testaccio in Rome. The poet Keats was also buried there after dying of tuberculosis in Rome at the age of 25. Shelley’s three year-old son, William, was buried there after his death in Italy.

The Grand Hotel Royal in Viareggio is an example of
the Liberty style architecture characteristic of the town

Travel tip:

Viareggio is a popular seaside resort in Tuscany with excellent sandy beaches and some beautiful examples of Liberty-style architecture, including the Grand Hotel Royal.  There is a monument to Shelley in the Piazza Paolina.

(Photo of the Grand Hotel Royal by Sailko CC BY-SA 3.0)



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Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola - architect

Legacy of beautiful Renaissance buildings throughout Italy

Vignola's Villa Farnese at Caprarola, near Viterbo in Lazio,
which is acknowledged as one of the architect's masterpieces

One of the great architects of the 16th century, Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola, died on this day in 1573 in Rome.

Often referred to simply as Vignola, the architect left the world with a wealth of beautiful buildings and two acknowledged masterpieces, the Villa Farnese at Caprarola and the Church of the Gesù in Rome.

Along with Andrea Palladio and Sebastiano Serlio, Vignola was responsible for spreading the style of the Italian Renaissance throughout Europe.

He was born at Vignola near Modena in Emilia-Romagna in 1507. He began his career as an architect in Bologna and then went to Rome to make drawings of Roman temples. He was invited to Fontainebleau  to work for King Francois I, where it is believed he first met the Bolognese architect, Serlio.

Back in Italy he designed the Palazzo Bocchi in Bologna and then moved to Rome to work for Pope Julius III. He later worked alongside the artist Michelangelo, who greatly influenced his architectural style.

From 1564 onwards, Vignola worked on the new St Peter’s Basilica, following the plans Michelangelo had drawn up for the domes.

Vignola died in Rome at the age of 65. His remains were reburied in the Pantheon as recently as 1973.

Travel tip:

Villa Farnese, which is also sometimes known as Villa Caprarola, is a beautiful house in the town of Caprarola in the province of Viterbo in Lazio, about 50 kilometres north west of Rome. Cardinal Alessandro Farnese commissioned Vignola to design his residence and it is now recognised as one of the finest examples of Renaissance architecture in Italy. The architect worked on it until his death in 1573.

The Chiesa del Gesù in Rome was built to Vignola's design

Travel tip:

The Church of the Gesù, Chiesa del Gesù, is the mother church of the Jesuits in Piazza del Gesù in the Campo dè Fiori area of Rome. The church was built in 1568 to Vignola’s specifications and its baroque façade is believed to be the first of this style ever designed.

(Photo of Villa Farnese by Livioandronico2013 CC BY-SA 4.0)
(Photo of Chiesa del Gesù by Jebulon CC0 1.0)

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Goffredo Mameli - writer

Young poet wrote the stirring words of Italian national anthem

Goffredo Mameli, as depicted in a portrait on
display in the Museum of the Risorgimento

Patriot and poet Goffredo Mameli died on this day in 1849 in Rome.

A follower of political revolutionary Giuseppe Mazzini and a supporter of the Risorgimento movement, Mameli is the author of the words of the Italian national anthem, Fratelli d’Italia.

Mameli was the son of a Sardinian admiral and was born in Genoa in 1827 where his father was commanding the fleet of the Kingdom of Sardinia.

As he grew up he became interested in the theories of Mazzini and he joined a political movement that supported the idea of a united Italy.

Mameli was a 20-year-old student when he wrote the words that are still sung today by Italians as their national anthem.  They were sung to music for the first time in November 1847 to celebrate the visit of King Charles Albert of Sardinia to Genoa.

The anthem is known in Italian as L’inno di Mameli or Mameli’s hymn.

Mameli became involved in the movement to expel the Austrians from Italy and joined Garibaldi’s army. He also became director of a newspaper that launched a press campaign urging the people to rise up against Austria.

He died after being accidentally injured in the leg by the bayonet of one of his colleagues during a battle. The wound became infected and his leg had to be amputated. He died as a result of the infection two months before his 22nd birthday.

Mameli’s Hymn, or Fratelli d’Italia as it is sometimes referred to because of its opening line, is played on Italian state occasions and embraced by Italian sports fans and competitors with great enthusiasm at events all over the world.

Football commentators noted how passionately Italy's footballers sang the words before their matches at Euro 2016.

After Italian unification, the official hymn of the House of Savoy, Marcia Reale - Royal March - was adopted as the Italian national anthem.

But after Italy became a republic in 1946, L’inno di Mameli was chosen as the new national anthem. This was made official by a law passed in November 2012.

Mameli's original manuscript

Travel tip:

The first manuscript of the words to the anthem is preserved at the Istituto Mazziniano, part of the Museum of the Risorgimento which is located within the house where Mazzini was born in Via Lomellini in Genoa. It appears in a book belonging to Mameli in which he recorded his notes, thoughts and writing. There is also a copy of the first printed version of the hymn with hand annotations by Mameli himself.

Travel tip:

Mameli’s tomb is in the Cimitero Monumentale del Verano in Piazzale del Verano near the Basilica of San Lorenzo fuori le Mura in Rome, but his remains were transferred during the Fascist era to the mausoleum for Garibaldi soldiers on the Gianicolo hill in Rome.

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