Marco Tardelli - footballer

Joyous celebration lasting image of Italy's 1982 World Cup win

Marco Tardelli loses himself in his joy
after scoring in the 1982 World Cup final

Marco Tardelli, the footballer whose ecstatic celebration after scoring a goal in the final became one of the abiding images of Italy's victory in the 1982 World Cup, was born on this day in 1954.

The midfield player, who spent much of his club career with one of the best Juventus teams of all time, ran to the Italian bench after his goal against West Germany gave the Azzurri a 2-0 lead, clenching both fists in front of his chest, tears flowing as he shook his head from side to side and repeatedly shouted "Gol! Gol!" in what became known as the Tardelli Scream.

Italy went on to complete a 3-1 win over the Germans in the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium in Madrid with Paolo Rossi and Antonio Altobelli scoring Italy's other goals.  Tardelli, who was part of Italy's squad for three World Cups, had earlier scored against Argentina in the second group phase.

Tardelli later said that he felt he "was born with that scream inside me" and its release was sparked by the sheer joy at realising a dream he had nurtured since he was a child, of scoring in the final of a World Cup.

It meant that when he retired as a player in 1988 he could look back on winning international football's greatest prize as well as every competition in which he participated in club football.

During his career with Juventus, whom he joined in 1975 and left after 11 seasons, the Turin team won the Scudetto - the Serie A title - five times, the Coppa Italia twice, plus the UEFA Cup, the Cup-Winners' Cup and the European Cup, as well as the UEFA Super Cup.

Relive Marco Tardelli's goal and celebration from the 1982 World Cup final

He and his Juventus team-mates Antonio Cabrini and Gaetano Scirea were the first three players in football history to have collected winners' medals for all three major European club competitions.  His goal in the first leg of the 1977 UEFA Cup final against Athletic Bilbao helped Juventus win their first European title.

Tardelli was born in the tiny village of Capanne di Careggine, in the mountainous Garfagnana area of northern Tuscany.  The village has between 500 and 600 residents.

He began his career with Pisa, then in Serie C, moved next to Serie B club Como and joined Juventus in 1975.  He went on to play 376 matches for Juventus, scoring 51 goals, before moving to Internazionale in 1985, spending two seasons in Milan before completing his playing career with a season in Switzerland, playing for St Gallen.

Called up for the national team in 1976, he won 81 international caps and scored six goals, captaining his country between 1983 and 1985.

During an era when Italian football was heavily defensive, Tardelli stood out for his versatility, a hard-tackling yet technically skilful and elegant defensive midfielder, with an ability to contribute in attack too.  He could play anywhere in midfield or defence but was also blessed with accurate passing ability with both feet and a powerful shot.

Tactically intelligent, it was inevitable he would move into coaching.  Indeed, he was hired by the Italian Football Federation as soon as he retired as a player.

Appointed as head coach of the Under-16 Italian national team in 1988, he quickly graduated to assistant Under-21 coach under Cesare Maldini before trying his hand in club football with Como, with whom he won promotion to Serie B.

Marco Tardelli and Giovanni Trapattoni during their time
in charge of the Republic of Ireland national team

After a stint with another Serie B team, Cesena, he returned to the Federation and head coach of the Italian Under-21 team, winning the European Under-21 Championship and reaching the quarter-finals at the 2000 Olympics.

His return to club football with Internazionale ended after one season, a string of embarrassing defeats culminating in a 6-0 defeat to local rivals AC Milan. Tardelli was fired in June 2001 and spells with Bari, the Egyptian national team and Arezzo brought no success.

He then spent five years working alongside Giovanni Trapattoni as assistant manager of the Republic of Ireland national team.  The pair took the Irish team to the finals of Euro 2012 but were dismissed after failing to qualify for the 2014 World Cup and Tardelli has worked largely as a pundit since then. He has recently published an autobiography, Tutto o niente: La mia storia (All or Nothing: My Story).

The Church of San Pietro in Careggine

Travel tip:

Careggine stands on a plateau offering stunning views of the strikingly beautiful Monte Pisanino and the valley it overlooks. The parish Church of St Peter, founded in 720, still conserves parts of its original medieval structure, including the bell tower, despite damage suffered in an earthquake in 1920.

Travel tip:

The Garfagnana is the mountainous area around the Serchio valley north of the walled city of Lucca.  Its heavy annual rainfall means that the lower mountain slopes have a lush covering of dense woodland, mainly sweet chestnut trees.  The main towns are Castelnuovo di Garfagnana, home to the impressive Rocca Ariostesca (Ariosto's Castle), and Barga, which is famous for its annual opera and jazz festivals. Barga was once dubbed "the most Scottish town in Italy" because its surrounding countryside bears similarities with the Scottish Highlands and has twinned with no fewer than four towns in Scotland.

More reading

Paolo Rossi's World Cup hat-trick marks redemption

Marcello Lippi - World Cup winning coach

A fourth World Cup for the Azzurri

(Photo of Marco Tardelli and Trapattoni by Michael Cranewitter CC BY-SA 3.0)
(Photo of Careggine church by Davide Papalini CC BY-SA 3.0)

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Mussolini's last stand

Deposed dictator proclaims Republic of Salò 

A Luftwaffe general inspects soldiers of the Italian Social
Republic in Rome in 1943

In what would prove the final chapter of his political career - and his life - Benito Mussolini proclaimed the creation of the Italian Social Republic on this day in 1943.

The establishment of this new state with the Fascist dictator as its leader was announced just 11 days after German special forces freed Mussolini from house arrest in the Apennine mountains.

Although Mussolini was said to be in failing health and had hoped to slip quietly into the shadows after his escape, Hitler's compassion for his Italian ally - whose rescue had been on the direct orders of the Fuhrer - did not extend to giving him an easy route into retirement.

Faced with an Allied advance along the Italian peninsula that was gathering momentum, he put Mussolini in charge of the area of northern and central Italy of which the German army had taken control following the Grand Fascist Council's overthrow of the dictator.

Although the area was renamed the Italian Social Republic - also known as the Republic of Salò after the town on the shores of Lake Garda where Mussolini's new government was headquartered - it was essentially a puppet German state.  Only Germany and its other ally, Japan, recognised it as legitimate.

Mussolini and Hitler in Munich with
Ciano second left in the picture

Reluctant though he was now to continue what he knew was a losing fight against the Allies, Mussolini did take advantage of his restored powers by taking revenge against those Fascists he perceived to have betrayed him by voting for his removal.

These included his son-in-law, Count Galeazzo Ciano, his former Foreign Minister, who had fled to Germany after Mussolini's reinstatement only to be sent back on Hitler's orders.  Mussolini's daughter, Edda, pleaded with her father for Ciano to be spared but she was ignored. Ciano and five others were executed by firing squad.

Although Mussolini was theoretically head of his own Italian army, which numbered about 150,000 personnel, decisions were taken in Germany, among them an order to carry out mass executions of Italian citizens in revenge for attacks on German soldiers by the Italian resistance.  One such attack in March 1944 triggered the slaughter of 335 Italians in retaliation for a bomb attack that killed 33 German soldiers. Mussolini was powerless to prevent the massacre of his own citizens, which hardly helped his popularity.

Meanwhile, the Allied advanced steadily forced the German army into retreat and by April 1945 the end for Mussolini and his Italian Social Republic was becoming inevitable.  In his public speeches, Mussolini was defiant, urging his people to ‘fight to the last Italian’. Secretly, however, he was plotting his escape.

On April 25, accompanied by a few fellow Fascists who still supported him, he and his mistress, Claretta Petacci, fled Salò, hoping to reach neutral Switzerland. His wife, Rachele, was left behind in Salò.  He had been on the run for only a day, however, when he was recognised at a checkpoint set up by Italian partisans on the shores of Lake Como and captured.

Two days later, Mussolini, Petacci and the rest of his entourage were executed, after which their bodies were taken to Milan and suspended for public display from a beam above a petrol station.

Travel tip:

For all its regrettable association with such a despised figure as Mussolini, Salò has recovered to become a pleasant resort on the shore of Lake Garda, visited by many tourists each year. Its promenade is the longest of any of the lakeside towns and it has a Duomo rebuilt in Gothic style in the 15th century as well as a museum commemorating, among other things, the resistance against Fascism.

Piazzale Loreto in Milan today, a square bearing little
resemblance to how it looked in 1945

Travel tip:

Visitors to Milan hoping to find the scene of Mussolini's final humiliation, when his body and those of his mistress and accomplices were hung upside down from a beam across an Esso petrol station, will find little evidence that the event took place.  Piazzale Loreto, the location of the Esso station, was renamed Piazza Quindici Martiri in honour of 15 Italian partisans murdered by Fascist militia in the same square in 1944. Nowadays a busy intersection of the SP11 highway north-west of the city centre at the end of the Corso Buenos Aires, it has changed in appearance so much as to be unrecognisable in comparison with archive pictures showing how it was in the 1940s.

(Wartime photos from German archives)
(Photo of Piazzale Loreto by Arbalete CC BY-SA 3.0)

More reading

Germans free Mussolini in daring Gran Sasso raid

Partisans capture and execute dictator Mussolini

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Andrea Bocelli - tenor

Singer has perfect voice for either opera or pop

Andrea Bocelli performing a concert outdoors in the
 United States, where he has a big following

Tenor Andrea Bocelli was born on this day in 1958 in La Sterza, a hamlet or frazione of Lajatico in Tuscany.

Bocelli, who is blind, had poor eyesight from birth and was diagnosed with congenital glaucoma, but he lost his sight completely at the age of 12 after an accident while playing football.

He always loved music and started to learn the piano at the age of six. But after hearing a recording by opera singer Franco Corelli, he set his heart on becoming a tenor.

Bocelli won his first singing competition in Viareggio with ‘O sole mio’ at the age of 14.

He has since sold 150 million records worldwide and performed for four US presidents, three Popes and the British Royal family. His voice has been acclaimed by critics as perfect for either opera or pop.

Bocelli originally studied law and spent one year working as a lawyer, but in 1992 the great Italian tenor Luciano Pavarotti heard a recording of his unique voice performing Italian rock and pop artist Zucchero’s song Miserere and helped his career take off.

Andrea Bocelli (right) with the late Luciano Pavarotti and rock
 musician Zucchero at one of Pavarotti's fund-raising events

He sang Miserere with Zucchero during a European tour and performed it at the San Remo song festival, where he won the newcomer’s section with the highest ever number of votes. He later performed it at Pavarotti’s annual charity concert in Modena.

He has sung duets with many top names in the classical and popular music world, made recordings, performed in concerts and operas and appeared on television all over the world. 

Many of his recordings have enjoyed record sales figures. His album Sacred Arias became the all-time biggest-selling classical crossover album by a solo artist when sales reached five million copies and, with more than 20 million copies sold worldwide, his 1997 pop album Romanza became the best-selling album by an Italian artist of any genre in history.

Watch Andrea Bocelli perform his hit single Time to Say Goodbye with British artist Sarah Brightman

Bocelli was made a Grand Officer of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic in 2006 and was honoured with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2010.

Bocelli's open-air Teatro del Silenzio, which he helped
to create near his home town of Lajatico in Tuscany

Travel tip:

Lajatico in the province of Pisa lies among rolling hills within easy distance of Florence and Pisa. Every summer, Bocelli performs in a concert with guest singers and musicians at the Teatro del Silenzio, an open air amphitheatre he helped establish in his home town. 

Travel tip:

La Sterza, the hamlet where Andrea Bocelli was born, is about two and a half kilometres from Lajatico and is surrounded by gentle sloping countryside dotted with olive trees. It is a prime area for strawberry cultivation and the local people celebrate producing their crops each year with a strawberry festival at the beginning of May.

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Cigoli – painter and architect

First artist to paint a realistic moon

Cigoli's fresco at the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore shows
 the Madonna standing on a pock-marked crescent moon

The artist Cigoli was born Lodovico Cardi on this day in 1559 near San Miniato in Tuscany.

He became a close friend of Galileo Galilei, who is said to have regarded him as the greatest painter of his time. They wrote to each other regularly and Galileo practised his drawing while Cigoli enjoyed making astronomical observances.

Cigoli painted a fresco in the dome of the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome depicting the Madonna standing upon a pock-marked lunar orb, exactly as it had been seen by Galileo through his telescope.

This is the first example still in existence of Galileo’s discovery about the surface of the moon being portrayed in art. The moon is shown just as Galileo had drawn it in his astronomical treatise, Sidereus Nuncius, which published the results of Galileo’s early observations of the imperfect and mountainous moon.

Until Cigoli’s fresco, the moon in pictures of the Virgin had always been represented by artists as spherical and smooth.

Cigoli's Martyrdom of St Stephen is in
the Uffizi Gallery in Florence

Lodovico Cardi was born at Villa Castelvecchio di Cigoli, and was therefore commonly known as Cigoli.

He trained as an artist in Florence under the Mannerist painter Alessandro Allori. But he later discarded Mannerist principles and painted to express his own feelings and ideas.

Cigoli also worked with the architect Bernardo Buontalenti in Florence and the imposing inner courtyard of the Palazzo Nonfinito in the city is believed to have been designed by Cigoli.

He painted a version of Ecce Homo for a Roman patron, which was subsequently taken by Napoleon to the Louvre in Paris. It was later restored to Florence and can now be seen in Palazzo Pitti.

Also for the Pitti Palace, Cigoli painted a Venus and Satyr and a Sacrifice of Isaac.

He became so famous and admired that when he travelled to Rome he was personally welcomed and greeted by the Florentine ambassador to the city.

For St Peter’s in Rome, Cigoli painted St Peter Healing the Lame. For the Church of San Paolo fuori le mura, he painted an unfinished Burial of St Paul. In a fresco for the Villa Borghese he painted a Story of Psyche.

Among other important Cigoli paintings are his Martyrdom of St Stephen and Stigmata of St Francis, which are both now in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.

Just before Cigoli’s death in Rome in June 1613 he was made a Knight of Malta by Pope Paul V.

The statue of Lodovico Cardi in his home
village of Cigoli in Tuscany

Travel tip:

Villa di Castelvecchio di Cigoli, the artist’s birthplace, is now referred to simply as Cigoli and is a hamlet - frazione - of the town of San Miniato in the province of Pisa in Tuscany. The Bishop’s Sanctuary in San Miniato has a Baroque façade designed by Cigoli.  There is a statue of Lodovico Cardi outside the Santaurio della Madonna Madre dei Bambini. San Miniato is also famous for white truffles and during the last three weeks of November hosts a festival dedicated to the white truffle, which is harvested in the surrounding area and is more highly valued than the black truffles found in other regions of Italy.

Travel tip:

After Cigoli’s death in Rome in 1613, his remains were transferred to Florence and buried in the Church of Santi Michele Arcangelo and Gaetano da Thiene in Via de Tornabuoni. The Church is one of the most important examples of the Baroque style of architecture in the city. Cigoli’s family tomb is between the second and third chapel on the left.

(Photos of Martyrdom of St Peter and statue by Sailko CC BY 3.0)

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Capture of Rome

Troops enter the capital in final act of unification

Bersaglieri soldiers storm through the walls of Rome in
this 1880 painting by Carlo Ademollo

Crack infantry soldiers from Piedmont entered Rome and completed the unification of Italy on this day in 1870.

Rome had remained under French control even after the first Italian parliament had proclaimed Victor Emmanuel of Savoy the King of Italy in 1861.

The Italian parliament had declared Rome the capital of the new Kingdom of Italy even though it had not yet taken control of the city.

A French garrison had remained in Rome on the orders of Napoleon III of France in support of Pope Pius IX.

An 1860 portrait of
 Victor Emmanuel II

But after the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war, Napoleon III had to withdraw many of his troops. Italian soldiers from the Bersaglieri regiments in Piedmont led by General Raffaele Cadorna seized their chance and after a brief bombardment were able to enter Rome through a breach in the Aurelian Walls near Porta Pia.

King Victor Emmanuel II was then able to take up residence in the Quirinale Palace and Italy was declared officially united.

The date of 20 September, which marked the end of the Risorgimento, the long process of Italian unification, is commemorated in practically every town in Italy with a street named Via XX Settembre.

Porta Pia, designed by Michelangelo in 1564, stands at the
end of Via XX Settembre, not far from the Villa Borghese

Travel tip:

Porta Pia is a gate in Rome’s ancient walls, named after Pope Pius lV, who commissioned Michelangelo to design it just before his death in Rome in 1564. You will find it at the end of Via XX Settembre, which goes off Piazza di San Bernardo, not far from the Quirinale Palace and the Trevi Fountain. A marble and brass monument - the Monumento al Bersagliere - commemorating the liberation of Rome was erected near the place the Italian troops breached the walls, opposite the external façade of the gate.

Travel tip:

One of Italy's many Via XX Settembre can be found in the beautiful city of Bergamo in northern Italy. Bergamo's Via XX Settembre is one of the main thoroughfares in the lower town and has been dubbed ‘the shopping street’ by the locals because of the wealth of smart shops that line both sides, from department stores, book and gift shops to jewellery and fashion stores. Top names gracing the elegant street include Calvin Klein, Stefanel, Benetton, Max Mara, Luisa Spagnoli, Marina Rinaldi and Sisley.

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Festival of San Gennaro

Worldwide celebrations for patron saint of Naples

An artistic depiction of the beheading of
San Gennaro in 305

Local worshippers, civic dignitaries and visitors meet together in the Duomo in Naples every year on this day to remember the martyrdom of the patron saint of the city, San Gennaro.

Each year a service is held to enable the congregation to witness the dried blood of the saint, which is kept in a glass phial, miraculously turn to liquid.

The practice of gathering blood to be kept as a relic was common at the time of the decapitation of San Gennaro in 305.

The ritual of praying for the miracle of liquefaction of the blood on the anniversary of his death dates back to the 13th century.

Gennaro is said to have been the Bishop of Benevento and was martyred during the Great Persecution led by the Roman Emperor Diocletian for trying to protect other Christians.

His decapitation is believed to have taken place in Pozzuoli but his remains were transferred to Naples in the 15th century to be housed in the Duomo.

Pope Francis kisses the phial containing San Gennaro's blood
at a ceremony at the Naples Duomo in 2015

The festival of the saint’s martyrdom is celebrated each year by Neapolitan communities all over the world and the recurrence of the miracle in Naples is televised and reported in newspapers.

On 19 September in 1926, immigrants from Naples congregated along Mulberry Street in the Little Italy section of Manhattan in New York City to celebrate the Festa di San Gennaro there for the first time.

Over the years the festival has expanded into an 11-day street fair celebrating Italian food and drink.

The Festival of San Gennaro is celebrated every year
on Mulberry Street in New York's Little Italy

In 2014 a Little Italy bakery constructed the world’s largest ever cannolo, a giant version of the popular Italian pastry that contains a sweet, creamy filling, to mark the occasion.

There is a major shrine to San Gennaro in the Church of the Most Precious Blood in Manhattan.

Festivals are also held in the Bronx, New Jersey, Los Angeles, Nevada and Seattle.

On the few occasions the miracle hasn’t happened in the Duomo in Naples, Neapolitans have dreaded a catastrophe occurring. In 1980, one occasion when the blood did not turn to liquid, a massive earthquake later struck the region.

The imposing entrance to the Duomo on Via Duomo, off
Via Tribunali in Naples

Travel tip:

The Duomo in Naples, in Via Duomo, off Via Tribunali, was built over the ruins of two earlier Christian churches for Charles I of Anjou at the end of the 13th century. One of the main attractions inside is the Royal Chapel of the Treasure of San Gennaro, which contains many precious works of art. The Duomo is also sometimes referred to as Cattedrale di San Gennaro. It is open to the public from 8.30 to 1.30 and 2.30 to 8pm Monday to Saturday and 8.30 to 1.30 and 4.30 to 7.30pm on Sundays.

Travel tip:

It is not known whether Gennaro was born in Benevento or Naples, but he is believed to have become a priest in Benevento when he was just 15 years old. In ancient times Benevento was one of the most important cities in southern Italy and there are many Roman remains to be seen there, including a triumphal arch erected in honour of Trajan and an amphitheatre.

More reading:

The martyred Roman soldier who became Sant'Alessandro of Bergamo

Why Italians look to Saint Anthony of Padua when things - or people - go missing



(Photo of Mulberry Street in New York by Nightscream CC BY-SA 2.5)

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Rossano Brazzi - Hollywood star

Actor quit as a lawyer for career on the big screen

Rossano Brazzi in a publicity shot
from a 1952 Italian magazine

The movie actor Rossano Brazzi, whose credits include The Barefoot Contessa, Three Coins in the Fountain and South Pacific, was born on this day in 1916 in Bologna.

Brazzi gave up a promising career as a lawyer in order to act and went on to appear in more than 200 films, more often than not cast as a handsome heartbreaker or romantic aristocrat.

He was at his peak in the 50s and 60s but continued to accept parts until the late 80s. His last major role was as Father DeCarlo in Omen III: The Final Conflict in 1981.

Brazzi's family moved to Florence when he was aged four. His father Adelmo, a shoemaker, opened a leather factory in which Rossano, his brother Oscar and his sister, Franca, would all eventually work.

Adelmo had ambitions for Rossano, however, helping him win a place at the University of Florence, where he obtained a law degree, and then sending him to Rome to work in the legal practice of a family friend.

But Rossano had become involved in a drama group at university and looked for opportunities to continue acting.  Eventually, he was approached by a film director and when he was offered a part in a film in 1939 he quit his job with the legal practice in order to devote himself to acting as a career.

He became something of a screen idol in Italy, where the cinema provided a release for Italians growing weary of the privations of war.  Brazzi fought with the Italian Resistance in Rome, motivated in part by the fate of his parents, who were persecuted by Mussolini's blackshirts after Adelmo had spoken out against the rise of the Fascist party.

The United Artists poster for the 1955
David Lean film Summertime

After the war, Italian film directors began to move towards gritty realism and parts for traditional male leads became scarce.  It prompted Brazzi to move to America and this proved a smart decision.

At the time, cinema audiences in America were declining as television persuaded people to stay at home.  It led the American film industry to recruit stars from Germany, France and Italy in the hope that their American films would attract large audiences in their native countries.  Brazzi, adept at portraying impeccably groomed romantic figures, became Hollywood's favourite Italian male lead for several years.

He made his first Hollywood appearance in Little Women in 1949, alongside June Allyson and Elizabeth Taylor, but it was his performance as an Italian count in The Barefoot Contessa in 1954, which also starred Ava Gardner and Humphrey Bogart, that revitalised his career.

That year brought him another success in Three Coins in the Fountain, about the romantic adventures of three American girls in Rome. The following year, Summertime, set in Venice, in which Brazzi played the part of a businessman who has a romantic affair with an American tourist portrayed by Katharine Hepburn, bolstered his comeback.

An original poster from the
movie South Pacific

In 1958, he played Emile de Becque, the South Seas planter who wins the heart of Nellie Forbush, a Navy nurse played by Mitzi Gaynor, in the screen adaptation of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical South Pacific.

In the 1960s, he starred in The Battle of the Villa Fiorita (1965), and Woman Times Seven (1967), followed by roles in Krakatoa East of Java and The Italian Job, starring Michael Caine, in 1969.

Brazzi was married twice.  His first marriage ended after 41 years in 1981 with the death of his wife, Lidia.  In 1984 he married their former housekeeper, the German-born Isle Fischer, with whom he lived in Rome until his death in 1994, aged 78.

Travel tips:

The University of Florence is situated close to the centre of Tuscany's regional capital, adjoining Piazza San Marco, just a few steps from the Galleria dell'Accademia, where Michelangelo's statue of David is the major attraction.  Alumni include past and current Prime Ministers Lamberto Dini and Matteo Renzi and the film director Franco Zeffirelli.

Campo San Vio in Venice was one of the locations used in
the Rossano Brazzi-Katherine Hepburn film Summertime

Travel tip:

One of the key locations in Summertime, the David Lean film in which Brazzi starred opposite Katherine Hepburn, is a pensione overlooking the Grand Canal.  For many years this was assumed to be the real-life Pensione Accademia, close to the Accademia Bridge.  In fact, the terrace of the supposed pensione was a set erected in Campo San Vio, a small square that looks out over the Grand Canal just along from the Peggy Guggenheim Museum at the end of Fondamenta Bragadin in the Dorsoduoro district.

More reading:

How Pier Angeli - 'Italy's Greta Garbo' - conquered Hollywood but died tragically young

The beauty and talent of screen goddess Gina Lollobrigida

Federico Fellini and La Dolce Vita

(Photo of Venice by Wolfgang Moroder)

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