Flaminio Bertoni - sculptor and car designer

Visionary ideas turned Citroën into style icon

Flaminio Bertoni in his workshop

The sculptor and automobile designer Flaminio Bertoni, the creative genius behind the groundbreaking Citroën cars of the 1930s, 40s and 50s, was born on this day in 1903 in what is now the Masnago district of Varese.

Bertoni, who lived in or near Paris from 1931 until his death in 1964, designed bodies for the stylish Traction Avant luxury executive car and the enduring workhorse 'Deux Chevaux' - the 2CV - which became almost a symbol of France.

Yes both of these were eclipsed, some would say, by the brilliance of Bertoni's aerodynamic, futuristic Citroën DS - also known as 'the Goddess' - which was named the most beautiful car of all time by the magazine Classic and Sports Car and was described by the Chicago Institute of Design soon after its launch as among the '100 most beautiful things in the world'.

Bertoni was fêted in France, where he was made a Knight of Arts and Letters by the government of Charles de Gaulle in 1961 but it was not until almost 40 years after his death that his achievements were given recognition in his home country, where his son, Leonardo, set up a museum in Varese to celebrate his work.

Even as a small child, Bertoni's ambitions were clear. He immersed himself in books about his idols, Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, from the age of six.

Bertoni's Citroën DS was named 'the most beautiful car
of all time' by the magazine, Classic and Sports Car

Although he would embrace car design with passion, his involvement with the nascent automobile industry came about by accident.  Having graduated from technical college in Varese, he was forced by the death of his father to look for a job rather than continue his formal education further.

It just so happened that the first offer of work came from a small car manufacturer in Varese, Carrozzeria Macchi, where he was taken on as a joiner's apprentice.  The company soon realised where his true talent lay, however, and within only a few years he was their head draftsman.

His first visit to France came in 1925, when he was invited to Paris following a visit to the Varese factory by some French engineers.  Bertoni met André Citroën and was impressed by his energy and forward thinking, yet at that stage wished to make his career in Italy.

Within six years, however, he had decided to make his home in Paris.  Having fallen out with Carrozzeria Macchi because his ideas were seen as too advanced, and when his mother made it clear she disapproved of his girlfriend, Giovanna Barcella, the lure of a new life in the sophisticated French capital, which was at the forefront of automotive design at the time, became too much to resist.

Bertoni's iconic 2CV remained in production for 42
years, with sales topping five million

When he and Giovanna stepped off the train at Gard de Lyon in October 1931 he had no job and she was already three months' pregnant but everything fell into place the following year. Two months after the birth of his son, whom he would name Leonardo in honour of Da Vinci, he was taken on by Citroën.

His first design triumph came in 1934 with the Traction Avant - literally 'front wheel drive' - which he presented to the company not as a design on paper but a fully scaled sculpture in plasticine.  The car had a lightweight all-metal body and a substantially bigger passenger compartment than was typical. It seemed certain to be a success but its development had been so expensive that the company was bankrupted soon after its launch.

Fortunately, the tyre company Michelin not only came to the rescue of the company but were keen to see the Traction Avant project realised.  Eventually, 750,000 were sold.

The next few years were difficult for Bertoni.  In 1936, dismayed at how little time her husband spent at home - while not working, he was exhibiting his sculptures and drawings and enjoying the Paris nightlife - Giovanna returned to Italy, taking Leonardo with her.  After the outbreak of the Second World War, he was twice interned as an alien, although on each occasion he was quickly released.  He also spent a year in hospital after a serious motorcycle accident, although he put the time to good use by studying for an architecture degree.

Once recovered, he took Citroën's plans for what was originally named the TPV - a 'tres petite voiture' to rival the German 'people's car', the Volkswagen - and developed the distinctive bodywork lines that would instantly set apart the fabled 2CV.  Conceived at first as a purely functional vehicle aimed at agricultural workers, it would in time become a French icon.  Launched in 1948, it remained in production for 42 years, selling more than five million.

The 1930s luxury saloon the Traction Avant was
Bertoni's first major success designing for Citroën

By now married for the second time, to the dancer Lucienne Marodon, he followed the 2CV with a car aimed at a much different market as France recovered from war keen to reconnect with its opulent past.  The Citroën DS - the letters were a play on the French word 'Déesse', meaning Goddess - was unveiled at the Paris Motor Show in 1955, where visitors were wowed not only by the beautiful sculpted curves of the car's superstructure but by its hydro-pneumatic suspension, front power disc brakes and power steering. It was hailed as 'a magic carpet ride' and 12,000 orders were placed on the opening day.

Bertoni created one more fine car, the Ami 6, and also managed to put his architectural skills into practice in the United States, where a system for building houses designed by Bertoni enabled 1,000 homes to go up in 100 days at a project in St Louis, Missouri.

He frequently exhibited and won prizes for his drawings and sculptures both in Italy and France.  The imposing Monument to the Fallen in Varese's Piazza della Repubblica was in part sculpted by Bertoni, working for Enrico Butti.

Bertoni, who always walked with a stick after his motorcycle accident, which left him with one leg shorter than the other, died in Paris in 1964 after suffering a stroke.  His second son, Serge, from his marriage to Lucienne Maradon, passed away a few years later, the victim of a road accident.

Travel tip:

Leonardo Bertoni, who died in 2015 at the age of 82, campaigned for the last 15 years of his life to see that his father's memory was preserved in his native country, setting up a museum in Varese to celebrate his work.  The museum has since closed but the exhibits are now on display at the Museum of Transport at Ranco, about 20km west of Varese on Lake Maggiore.

The Estensi Palace and Gardens in Varese

Travel tip:

Varese is a pleasant city in northern Lombardy overlooking the lake of the same name, situated about 20 minutes from Milan Malpensa airport and about 55km (34 miles) from the city of Milan.  The city is small enough to get around on foot, with attractions such as the central Piazza Monte Grappa, the Basilica San Vittore and the spectacular Estensi Palace and Gardens within a short distance of one another.

More reading:

Battista 'Pinin' Farina - Ferrari's design mastermind

Vittorio Jano - engineer who created Ferrari's classic V-8 Dino engine

How industrialist Enrico Piaggio gave Italy the Vespa motor scooter

Also on this day:

967: Death of San Pietro Orseolo, doge of Venice

(Picture credits: Citroën DS by Alexandre Prévot; 2CV by Croquant; Traction Avant by Abrimaal; Estensi Palace by Docfra; all via Wikimedia Commons)

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Victor Emmanuel II dies

Christian burial for the King excommunicated by the Pope

Victor Emmanuel II: a portrait from 1860 

Victor Emmanuel II, the first King of Italy, died on this day in 1878 in Rome.

He was buried in a tomb in the Pantheon in Rome and was succeeded by his son, who became Umberto I, King of Italy.

Victor Emmanuel II was allowed to be buried in the Pantheon by Pope Pius IX, even though he had previously excommunicated him from the Catholic Church.

Before becoming King of Italy, Victor Emmanuel, as King of Sardinia-Piedmont, had secretly encouraged Garibaldi in the conquest of Sicily and Naples. He had then led his Piedmontese army into papal territory to link up with Garibaldi, despite the threat of excommunication.

In his quest to become King of a fully united Italy, Victor Emmanuel achieved two notable military triumphs. He managed to acquire the Veneto after linking up with Bismark’s Prussia in a military campaign in 1866. Also, after the withdrawal of the French occupying troops, his soldiers were able to enter Rome through a breach in the walls at Porta Pia and take over the city.

A painting by Sebastiano de Albertis shows Garibaldi hailing
Victor Emmanuel II as King of Italy at Teano, near Naples 

This had antagonised Pius IX so much that he refused all overtures from the new King, when he attempted a reconciliation.

The first King of Italy had been born Vittorio Emanuele Maria Alberto Eugenio Ferdinando Tommaso in 1820 in Turin.

In 1842 Victor Emmanuel married his cousin, Adelaide of Austria, and was styled as the Duke of Savoy, before becoming King of Sardinia-Piedmont after his father, Charles Albert, abdicated the throne following a humiliating military defeat by the Austrians at the Battle of Novara.

After he was proclaimed King of a united Italy in 1861 by the country’s new Parliament, the monarch styled himself Victor Emmanuel II, perhaps implying that Italy had always been ruled by the House of Savoy. This immediately provoked criticism from some factions.

Pope Pius IX

Victor Emmanuel II could trace his ancestry back to Victor Emmanuel I, who had been King of Sardinia from 1802 until his death in 1824.

Victor Emmanuel II had become King of Sardinia in 1849 after his father’s abdication. His father had succeeded a distant cousin to become King of Sardinia in 1831.

The Kingdom of Sardinia is considered to be the legal predecessor to the Kingdom of Italy.

As King of Sardinia, Victor Emmanuel II had appointed Count Camillo Benso of Cavour as Prime Minister of Sardinia-Piedmont, who had then masterminded a clever campaign to put him on the throne of a united Italy.

Victor Emmanuel II had become the symbol of the Risorgimento, the Italian unification movement in the 19th century.  He had supported Garibaldi’s Expedition of the Thousand in 1860, which resulted in the fall of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, giving him control over the southern part of the country.  But when he ascended the throne there were still two major territories left outside the new Kingdom, the Veneto and Rome.

The scene outside the Quirinale Palace at the start of Victor
Emmanuel II's funeral procession

He acquired the Veneto in 1866 and, in 1870, after the French had withdrawn from Rome, he set up the new Italian capital there and chose as his residence the Palazzo del Quirinale.

The Italian people called him Padre della Patria - Father of the Fatherland.

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, which Victor Emmanuel II had chosen as his residence, and the Trevi fountain. A marble and brass monument, the Monumento al Bersagliere, commemorating the liberation of Rome, was put up near the place where the Italian troops found a way through the walls.

The Pantheon has been standing in the Piazza della Rotonda
 since AD118 and is one of Rome's finest ancient buildings

Travel tip:

Victor Emmanuel II is buried in the Pantheon in Piazza della Rotonda in Rome. Considered to be Rome’s best preserved ancient building, the Pantheon was built in AD 118 on the site of a previous building dating back to 27 BC. It was consecrated as a church in the seventh century and many other important people are buried there, including Victor Emmanuel II’s son, Umberto I, and his wife, Queen Margherita.

More reading:

How the capture of Rome completed Italian unification

First Italian parliament convenes to proclaim Victor Emmanuel II King of Italy

Victor Emmanuel I - King of Sardinia

Also on this day:

1878: Umberto I is proclaimed Italy's new monarch

(Picture credit: Pantheon by Klaus F via Wikimedia Commons)

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Leonardo Sciascia – writer

Books mercilessly expose Italian politics and role of the Mafia

The writer and politician Leonardo Sciascia,
pictured in 1980

Leonardo Sciascia, novelist, playwright and politician, was born on this day in 1921 in Racalmuto in Sicily.

Many of his novels looked at Sicilian life and how the Mafia operates as part of society, and some have since been made into films.

He also wrote a book analysing the kidnapping and assassination of Aldo Moro, the prominent Christian Democrat politician and former prime minister.

Sciascia was part of an investigation into Moro’s kidnapping and criticised Giulio Andreotti, the prime minister at the time, for his lack of action and for failing to deal with Brigate Rosse, the Red Brigades.

When Sciascia was a teenager his family moved to Caltanissetta in Sicily, where he studied writing and literature.

He married Maria Andronico, a local school teacher, in 1944 and he himself held teaching positions for the early part of his career, retiring to write full time in 1968.  In 1954 he published an autobiographical novel inspired by his experiences as an elementary school teacher.

A statue of Leonardo Sciascia, cast in bronze,
 on Via Garibaldi in his home town, Racalmuto

In 1948 his brother committed suicide, which was to have a profound effect on Sciascia’s life.

His first work was a collection of poems satirising fascism, which was published in 1950. A few years later he was awarded the Premio Pirandello for his essay, Pirandello e il pirandellismo.  In 1957, his book Gli zii di Sicilia - The Uncles of Sicily - included his views about the influence of the United States and communism in the world, and about the 19th century unification of Italy.

In 1961 he published one of his most famous novels, a mystery, Il giorno della civetta - The Day of the Owl - which demonstrated how the Mafia manage to sustain themselves in a society where there is little or no moral guidance. Two years later he published the historical novel, Il consiglio d’egitto - The Council of Egypt - set in 18th century Palermo.

In 1965 he wrote the play, L’onorevole - The Honourable - denouncing the complicity between the Government and the Mafia.

In 1971 Sciascia wrote a mystery, Il Contesto - The Challenge - a merciless portrayal of Italian politics, which inspired Francesco Rosi’s film, Cadaveri eccellenti, which was also shown under the title Illustrious Corpses.

Leonardo Sciascia's dedication to Racalmuto on a stone
overlooking the town, to which he was deeply attached

Sciascia’s books are based on his own experience of Sicily and show how families are linked with political parties and call in favours that benefit individuals rather than society as a whole.

Nonetheless, throughout his life he remained profoundly attached to the area around his native village.

In 1975 Sciascia was elected to the city council in Palermo as an independent with the Italian Communist Party (PCI) but in 1977 he resigned from the party because of his opposition to dealing with the Christian Democrats.

He was later elected to the Italian and European parliaments with the Radical party.

Sciascia died in 1989 in Palermo at the age of 68.

Travel tip:

Racalmuto, where Leonardo Sciascia was born, is in the province of Agrigento about 90km (56 miles) south-east of Palermo and about 15km (9 miles) north-east of Agrigento. Sciascia wrote a dedication to his home town which is engraved on a stone displayed there, saying he had tried, with his writing, to portray life in the village he loved. There is a lifelike bronze statue of him by the roadside in Via Garibaldi in the centre of the town, which is also home to the Leonardo Sciascia Foundation.

The impressive Teatro Massimo in Palermo

Travel tip:

Palermo, where Sciascia died, is the capital of Sicily and has varied architecture bearing testimony to its rich history. There are Norman, Romanesque, Gothic and Baroque churches and palaces and a magnificent opera house, the largest in Italy, called Teatro Massimo, which was built in Renaissance style and opened in 1897.

More reading:

How prolific playwright Dario Fo sought to expose corruption

Writer Alberto Moravia likened Fascism to a childhood illness

Sicily brought to life in Andrea Camilleri's Montalbano novels

Also on this day:

1337: Death of the brilliant Renaissance artist Giotto




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Vincent Gardenia - TV and film actor

US sitcom star with Neapolitan roots

Vincent Gardenia in Moonstruck, for which he
was nominated for an Academy Award

The actor Vincent Gardenia, one of the most recognisable faces on American television in the 1960s and 1970s and twice nominated for an Oscar for his film roles, was born on this day in 1920 in what is now Ercolano, a town that forms part of the Naples metropolitan area.

Gardenia starred as the father of Cher's character in the film Moonstruck, was the detective Frank Ochoa alongside Charles Bronson in Death Wish and was Mr Mushnik in the musical film adaptation of Little Shop of Horrors.

On television, he portrayed J Edgar Hoover in the mini-series Kennedy, starring Martin Sheen as the murdered former president, but was perhaps best known as Archie Bunker's neighbour Frank Lorenzo in the 70s comedy hit All in the Family, which was the American version of the iconic British comedy Till Death Us Do Part.

Born Vincenzo Scognamiglio, he spent only the first two years of his life in Italy before his family took the decision to emigrate to the United States, settling in New York in the borough of Brooklyn.

Vincent Gardenia (right) with Rue McClanahan starred with
Jean Stapleton (left) and Caroll O'Connor in All in the Family

His father, Gennaro, had worked as an actor and theatre manager in Naples and soon after arriving in New York established an Italian-language acting troupe that specialized in melodramas, giving performances in the city's many Italian neighbourhoods.

Vincenzo made his debut at the age of five, playing a shoeshine boy.  He began playing character roles while still a teenager.

The troupe continued to provide him with a living into adulthood, when his acting ability began to attract interest from further afield.

He became known as Vincent Gardenia after deciding to adopt his father's middle name as his stage second name.  From the early 1950s he began to take roles away from the family troupe and made his Broadway debut in 1955, when he took an English-speaking part for the first time, portraying a pirate in the play In April Once.

The following year he appeared as Piggy in The Man With the Golden Arm, followed by roles in A Streetcar Named Desire and Stalag 17.  His talent for comedy came to the fore in the 1970s, when he starred in the in the Neil Simon plays God's Favorite, California Suite and The Prisoner of Second Avenue.

Gardenia as detective Frank
Ochoa in Death Wish

He won a Tony Award for his performance as Peter Falk's brother in The Prisoner of Second Avenue in 1971.  At the awards ceremony, he gave his acceptance speech in Italian as a tribute to his late father, without whose encouragement, he said, his career might never have happened.

Gardenia's film career, which had begun in 1945 with a bit part in The House on 92nd Street but did not begin in earnest until the 1960s, included roles in the Paul Newman movie The Hustler and director Alan Arkin's debut film Little Murders. 

He was nominated for an Oscar in 1973 for best supporting actor for his role as Dutch, the baseball manager in Bang the Drum Slowly, which starred a then little-known Robert de Niro. Subsequently, he appeared in The Front Page, Heaven Can Wait and Little Shop of Horrors before being nominated for an Academy Award for the second time for Moonstruck in 1987.

Gardenia was working right up until his death in December 1992.  A passionate supporter of the pure acting of the theatre, he was in Philadelphia, preparing for a three-week run as restaurant owner Lou Garziano in the Tom Dulack comedy Breaking Legs, when he suffered a heart attack.

He had retired to his hotel room in good spirits following the final preview performance but was found dead the following morning.  He was 72.

The Scognamiglio grave at Saint Charles
Cemetery on Long Island

The director and cast agreed that Gardenia would have insisted 'the show must go on' in best theatrical traditions and his part was taken by Harry Guardino in a performance dedicated by the cast to their colleague.

Gardenia was buried at Saint Charles Cemetery in Farmingdale, Long Island, New York, alongside his parents, both of whom had died in the 1960s. A section of 16th Avenue in the Bensonhurst neighbourhood of Brooklyn, where Gardenia lived, was renamed Vincent Gardenia Boulevard in his memory.

Travel tip:

Until 1969, the town now called Ercolano was known as Resina, the name given to the medieval settlement that built on top of the volcanic material left by the AD 79 eruption of Vesuvius that also destroyed nearby Pompeii.  The existence of Ercolano - the Roman city of Herculaneum - was not known until the early 18th century, when a farmer sinking a well came across ancient marble columns.  Herculaneum was smaller and less prestigious than Pompeii but is better preserved due to the different volcanic materials that covered the town.

The ruins at Ercolano are better preserved than at its
more famous neighbour Pompeii

Travel tip:

The ruins at Pompeii and Ercolano can both be reached by using the Circumvesuviana railway, which encompasses a number of routes including the oldest piece of railway line in Italy, that which links Naples and Portici, which was opened in 1839.  A steam train service to Ottoviano was launched in 1891 and the first decade of the 20th century saw the line extended to Pompeii along the coast, with an additional line built to encircle Mount Vesuvius.  The coastal line was electrified and stretched to Castellammare di Stabia by 1934. The Second World War and the Vesuvius eruption of 1944 interrupted work on the line but after the war a tunnel of 10km was created to link Castellammare with Vico Equense and the line extended to Sorrento by 1948.

More reading:

Virna Lisi - the Hollywood star once dubbed the 'new Marilyn  Monroe'

Triumph and tragedy: the short life of Rudolph Valentino

How Rossano Brazzi quit his legal career to become a Hollywood heartbreaker

Also on this day:

1797: Italy's 'tricolore' raised for the first time




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First Montessori school opens in Rome

Educationalist Maria Montessori launches Casa dei Bambini

Maria Montessori in Rome in 1913

The first of what would become recognised across the world as Montessori schools opened its doors in Rome on this day in 1907.

The Casa dei Bambini, in the working class neighbourhood of San Lorenzo, was launched by the physician and educationalist Maria Montessori.

Montessori - the first woman in Italy to qualify as a physician - had enjoyed success with her teaching methods while working with children as a volunteer at Rome University's psychiatric clinic.

She was convinced that the techniques she had used to help children with learning difficulties and more serious mental health issues could be adapted for the benefit of all children.

The Casa dei Bambini came into being after Montessori had been invited to work on a housing project in San Lorenzo, where her responsibility was to oversee the care and education of the project's children while their parents were at work.

Situated in Via dei Marsi, it catered for between 50 and 60 children aged between two and seven.  The methods Montessori employed, which included many practical activities as well as more conventional lessons and revolved around allowing children to follow the direction in which their own interests led them, were essentially the same as those that would become the hallmarks of her philosophy.

Maria Montessori's image featured on Italy's
1000 lire banknotes prior to the switch to the Euro

Children developed self-discipline and self-motivation in the environment she created for them, while their intellectual attainments outstripped those of children in conventional education. Word of the method's success quickly spread.  A second Casa dei Bambini was opened later the same year, followed by three more in 1908.  By 1915, schools in every major European country were using the Montessori method, which was being taken up with enthusiasm in parts of Australia, Asia, South America and the Middle East.

It became popular in the United States from about 1911 onwards and by 1913 there were about 100 Montessori schools.  Maria Montessori embarked on a number of lecture tours, although the popularity of her methods went into decline from about 1925, largely because of opposition from the educational establishment.  It did not gain momentum again until the 1950s.

Nonetheless, at their peak, Montessori schools in the United States numbered around 4,000 out of approximately 7,000 across the world.

Maria Montessori was born in 1870 in the town of Chiaravalle in the province of Ancona in Le Marche. Her parents were well educated middle-class people but were traditional and conservative in their outlook, especially when it came to the role of women in society.

They moved to Florence and then Rome because of her father's work with the Ministry of Finance.  This afforded her better educational opportunities, yet she was not encouraged to aim higher than teaching as a career.  It was somewhat in defiance of what she perceived as restrictions on her ambition that she first set out to study engineering and then switched to medicine, enrolling at the University of Rome.

It was unheard of for a woman to study medicine at the time and she met with hostility from both professors and fellow students.  She had to perform her dissection of cadavers alone in her own time because it was deemed inappropriate for her to attend classes with men in the presence of a naked body, even one preserved in formaldehyde.

Maria Montessori's name still adorns the wall of the Casa
dei Bambini in Rome, which is no longer a Montessori school 

Yet she persevered and became a trailblazer for women in medicine when she obtained her degree in 1896.

Afterwards, she remained at Rome University to research into so-called 'phrenasthenic' children - those deemed to be mentally retarded.  It was her observation of the behaviour of these children that led her to discover ways of teasing out the intrinsic intelligence she believed existed in all children.

During that time, she had a son, Mario, as a result of an affair with a fellow doctor.  Convention at the time dictated that were she to have married the father she would have been expected to abandon her career.  She refused to contemplate such a sacrifice and Mario was placed in foster care, although they would be reunited in his teenage years and he would go on to continue his mother's work after her death.

The growth of the Montessori method suffered a setback during the 1930s when Benito Mussolini, the leader of the Italian Fascist government, who had initially embraced Maria Montessori's ideas, began closing Montessori schools if their teachers did not swear loyalty to the state.  In Germany, Hitler's Nazi party took a similarly hard line, banning the Montessori method and even burning copies of her books.

Maria fled with her son to India, where she knew her methods were growing in popularity, but once Italy signed a formal alliance with Germany they were both arrested as aliens.  Although Maria was spared any restriction on her movement, Mario was incarcerated in a prison camp.

At the end of the war they returned to Europe and Maria based herself in Amsterdam.  Nominated three times for the Nobel Peace Prize, she died in the Netherlands in 1952 at the age of 81.

Piazza Mazzini in Chiaravalle, where Maria
Montessori was born in 1870

Travel tip:

Maria Montessori's birthplace in Chiaravalle in Piazza Mazzini is open to the public.  It houses a museum containing a collection of the educational materials developed by Montessori and used in the original Casa dei Bambini.  It is also the head office of the Montessori Foundation.

Travel tip:

The San Lorenzo district adjoins the campus of Rome's Sapienza University and sits just to the north of the main Roma Termini station.  Dominated by Via Tiburtina, it is a gritty, somewhat down at heel neighbourhood that has suffered through the decline of industry in the city yet is home to a vibrant youth culture thanks to a large student population.

More reading:

The 17th century philosophy student thought to be the first woman in the world to receive an academic degree

How 18th century scientist Laura Bassi broke new ground for female academics

Tullio Levi-Civita - the mathematician Einstein admired

Also on this day:

Befana - the post-Christmas gift bonus for Italy's children


(Picture credits: Banknotes by Flanker via Wikimedia Commons)

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Giuseppe Impastato - anti-Mafia activist

Son of mafioso was murdered for speaking out

Giuseppe 'Peppino' Impastato,
pictured in Cinisi in 1977

Giuseppe Impastato, a political activist who was murdered by the Sicilian Mafia in 1978, was born on this day in 1948 in Cinisi, a coastal resort 36km (22 miles) west of Palermo which is now home to the city's Punta Raisi airport.

Also known as Peppino, Impastato was born into a Mafia family.  His father, Luigi, had been considered a significant enough figure in the criminal organisation to be sent into internal exile during the Fascist crackdown of the 1920s and was a close friend of the local Mafia boss, Gaetano Badalamenti.

Impastato had already begun to take an interest in left-wing political ideology when his uncle, Cesare Manzella, was blown up by a car bomb in 1963, the victim of a contract killing.  The murder had a profound effect on Impastato, then only 15, who denounced all his father stood for and left home.

He began to write, founding a left-wing newsletter, L'Idea Socialista, in 1965, and soon joined the Italian Socialist Party of Proletarian Unity (PSIUP).  He became the regular instigator of student and workers' protests during the late 1960s and led a number of anti-Mafia demonstrations.

At that stage, he was considered more a nuisance than a threat by Badalamenti but all that changed after Impastato, pursuing a career in journalism, joined with a group of friends to launch an independent radio station in 1976.

Impastato in 1968, campaigning against
a third runway at Punta Raisa airport

Impastato hosted a popular show that regularly mocked politicians and mafiosi and sought to expose wrongdoings.  Badalamenti, who was later shown to have bribed officials to win a construction contract for a third runway at Punta Raisa airport, was a particular target.

It was claimed by Impastato that Badalamenti had an arrangement with the local police whereby they turned a blind eye to his activities so long as he guaranteed officers a quiet life by eliminating petty crime in the town.

The police chose to ignore the claim but Badalamenti was sufficiently riled to want Impastato silenced.  He warned Luigi Impastato that if he could not persuade his son to stop making such accusations he would be killed.

Luigi himself died in suspicious circumstances in 1977, knocked down by a car.  When Badalamenti and his associates turned up at the Impastato house to offer condolences, Peppino railed against them, accusing them of being responsible for his father's death, and vowed to step up his campaigning.

He disappeared on the evening of May 8, 1978, as he was preparing to stand in Cinisi's municipal elections as a Proletarian Democracy candidate.  After friends and family began to search for him, they discovered his remains in the early hours of May 9 close to the main Palermo-Trapani railway line.

Gaetano Badalamenti

Impastato had been killed and his body tied to the railway line along with a quantity of explosive, which was then detonated. His death might have made national news but was completely overshadowed by the discovery later in the same morning of the body of the kidnapped politician Aldo Moro in the boot of a car in Rome.

With little attention from outside, the Cinisi police pursued the line that Impastato had been killed in an attempt to blow up the railway line, or had intended to take his own life in doing so.  No evidence that pointed to murder was found and no arrests were made.

It was only through a 23-year campaign pursued by Peppino's brother, Giovanni, and his mother, Felicia, with the help of an anti-Mafia documentation centre in Sicily, that justice was done and Badalamenti was convicted of ordering the killing.  It took 18 years for them to persuade the authorities even to reopen the case.

In the event, Salvatore Palazzalo, who turned state's evidence as a Mafia pentito, provided vital information that led to the arrest and trial of Badalamenti and Vito Palazzalo, his cousin and Badalamenti's right-hand man.  Vito Palazzalo was sentenced to 30 years' jail, Badalamenti to life.  Both died in custody, Badalamenti in the United States, where he was already serving a 45-year term for his part in the so-called Pizza Connection drug-trafficking ring.

At around the time of the convictions, Peppino's life was celebrated in 2000 in a film, I cento passi - 'the hundred steps' - that being the distance between the Impastato house and the home of Gaetano Badalamenti.

The beach at Cinisi

Travel tip:

The coastal town of Cinisi, on the eastern side of the Gulf of Castellammare, is blessed with a wide, sandy beach, which makes it an attraction for tourists, who can also enjoy visiting the Benedictine Monastery that overlooks the town, as well as a number of interesting churches.  The town is guarded by a watchtowers thought to originate in the 15th century or earlier.  There are also several nature trails in the area, which is renowned for its natural beauty and the quality of local produce.  A ricotta festival takes place in Cinisi each May.

Palermo's striking Metropolitan Cathedral of the
Assumption of Virgin Mary

Travel tip:

Palermo is home to some wonderful architecture, including the 9th century Palazzo dei Normanni, with its impressive neoclassical facade, the Cappella Palatina, the royal chapel of the Norman kings and famous for its mosaics, the atmospheric Teatro Massimo opera house and the magnificent Metropolitan Cathedral of the Assumption of Virgin Mary, which was originally erected in the 12th century but which has had many additions and alterations.  It combines five distinctive architectural styles - Norman, Moorish, Gothic, Baroque and neoclassical.

More reading:

Libero Grassi - the businessman who refused to pay protection

The life and death of anti-Mafia crusader Giovanni Falcone

The kidnapping of Aldo Moro

Also on this day:

1932: The birth of novelist Umberto Eco

(Picture credits: Cinisi beach by Abrahami; Palermo cathedral by Leandro Neumann Ciuffo; via Wikimedia Commons)

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Giovanni Battista Pergolesi – composer

Brief career of 'opera buffa' genius

A portrait of Pergolesi presented to the Naples
Conservatory by his brother, Florimo

Opera composer Giovanni Battista Pergolesi was born on this day in 1710 as Giovanni Battista Draghi, in Jesi, in what is now the province of Ancona.

He later acquired the name Pergolesi, the Italian word for the residents of Pergola in Marche, which had been the birthplace of his ancestors.

Pergolesi was the most important early composer of opera buffa - comic opera. He wrote a two-act buffa intermezzo for one of his serious operas, which later became a popular work in its own right.

He also wrote sacred music and his Stabat Mater, composed in 1736, has been used in the soundtracks of many contemporary films.

Pergolesi received a musical education at the Conservatorio dei Poveri in Naples where he gained a good reputation as a violinist.

Watch a complete performance of Pergolesi's Stabat Mater

In 1732 he was appointed maestro di cappella to the Prince of Stigliano in Naples and produced for him an opera buffa, Lo frate ‘nnammorato, and a sacred work, believed to be his Mass in D, which were both well received.

The following year his serious opera, Il prigionier superbo, was produced but it was the comic intermezzo, La serva padrona, inserted between the acts, that was most popular, revealing his gift for comic characterisation.

A poster advertising a performance of Pergolesi's
 intermezzo La Serva Padrona in 1739

In 1734 Pergolesi went to Rome to direct the performance of his Mass in F.

After that his health began to fail and he went to live in the Franciscan monastery at Pozzuoli, near Naples, where he finished his last work, the celebrated Stabat Mater, which demonstrated his ability to handle large, choral and instrumental forces.

He died in extreme poverty at the age of 26 and was buried in the Cathedral at Pozzuoli.

When Pergolesi died, his fame had scarcely spread beyond Rome and Naples, but later in the century it grew enormously. The success of La serva padrona was mainly posthumous and it reached its peak after it was performed in Paris in 1752.

It led to the so called ‘guerre des bouffons’ - the war of the buffoons - which divided the supporters of serious opera and the supporters of the new Italian comic opera, with Pergolesi held up as a model of the Italian style. Musical forgers produced works claiming to be by Pergolesi, and a number of works originally attributed to him have since been shown to be by other composers.

Jesi's Teatro Pergolesi was named in honour of the composer

Pergolesi was the subject of a 1932 Italian film, Pergolesi , directed by Guido Brignone with Elio Steiner playing the role of the composer.

His Stabat Mater was used in the films, Farinelli, Jesus of Montreal, Smilla’s Sense of Snow, Amadeus, The Mirror, Cactus and a 2016 documentary, Nothing Left Unsaid, which was about Gloria Vanderbilt and Anderson Cooper.

Pergolesi was honoured in his home town of Jesi in the 19th century when the Teatro della Concordia was renamed Teatro Pergolesi.

Travel tip:

The Conservatorio dei Poveri in Naples, where Pergolesi studied, was founded in 1589 by Marcello Fossataro, a Franciscan monk. It was adjacent to the Baroque Church of Santa Maria della Colonna in Via dei Tribunali. It was converted into a religious educational institution in 1743.

The Baroque church of Santa Maria
della Colonna in Naples

Travel tip:

Pozzuoli is a comune of Naples in the region of Campania, lying in the centre of an area of volcanic activity. In the 1980s the city experienced hundreds of tremors and the sea bottom was raised by almost two metres, making the Bay of Pozzuoli too shallow for large craft. After Pergolesi died in poverty in Pozzuoli, his body was placed in an unmarked mass grave in the Cathedral.

More reading:

Why Domenico Cimarosa's Il Matrimonio Segreto is regarded as one of the greatest comic operas

The opening of Teatro San Carlo in Naples in 1737

Jacopo Peri - the 'inventor' of the opera

Also on this day:

1975: Death of writer Carlo Levi

(Picture credits: Teatro Pergolesi by Gaspa; church of Santa Maria della Colonna by Miguel Hermoso Cuesta)



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