Assunta ‘Pupetta’ Maresca – camorrista

Ex-beauty queen who avenged death of husband

Assunta Maresca's good looks concealed
a ruthless, violent streak

Assunta Maresca, the mobster’s wife who made headlines around the world when she walked into a bar in Naples in broad daylight and shot dead the man she suspected of ordering the murder of her husband, was born on this day in 1935 in the coastal town of Castellammare di Stabia.

Better known as ‘Pupetta’ – the little doll – on account of her small stature and stunning good looks, Maresca took the law into her own hands after her husband – a young and ambitious camorrista and the father of her unborn child - was assassinated on the orders of a rival.

Her extraordinary act brought her an 18-year prison sentence, of which she served about a third, yet made her a figure of such public fascination that several movies and TV series were made about her life.

She went on to become the lover of another mobster and was alleged to have participated in Camorra activity herself, serving another jail term after she was found guilty of abetting the murder of a forensic scientist, which she denied.

Assunta Maresca was born into a world of crime.  Her father, Alberto, was a smuggler specialising in trafficking cigarettes; her uncle, Vincenzo, a Camorra boss who had served a prison sentence for killing his own brother.

Her family were known as i Lampatielli, from the word ‘lampo’, meaning lightning, for the speed at which they wielded a knife. Assunta had a violent streak and was once arrested for seriously wounding a fellow pupil, although she escaped conviction after her victim, on leaving hospital, withdrew her complaint.

Maresca on the day of her wedding to Pasquale Simonetti,
who would be dead within a matter of weeks

At the age of 19 she entered and won a beauty pageant at Rovigliano, a few kilometres along the Bay of Naples coast from Castellammare.  It was not long after that when she caught the eye of Pasquale Simonetti, ostensibly a worker in the Naples fruit and vegetable market but also a contraband cigarette dealer and the enforcer for a Camorra cartel that fixed the prices of produce, controlled supply and selected the buyers, often through violent coercion.

With the family’s blessing they were married at the Pontifical Shrine of the Blessed Virgin of the Rosary of Pompei – the cathedral in the modern town of Pompei, a short distance from the celebrated Roman ruins – in April 1955.

Pasquale, a big, broad man from Palma Campania, a village about 25km (15 miles) from Naples on the other side of Mount Vesuvius, promised to change his life for Assunta but did not have the chance. Ambitious enough to be seen as a threat by other gang bosses, just three months after the wedding, on July 16, he was killed by Gaetano Orlando, a hitman hired by gang boss Antonio Esposito.

Heavily pregnant, a devastated Assunta soon discovered who was responsible.  She believed that the police knew as well but, for one reason or another, chose not to make an arrest. With her younger brother, Ciro, she travelled to San Giovanni in Rotondo, some 230km (143 miles) away in Puglia, in order to plan her next move well away from Esposito’s sphere of influence.

Maresca believed family honour dictated
that she avenged her husband's death

It was from there that she drove back to Naples a little under three weeks later and arranged to meet Esposito in a bar on Corso Novara, a few steps from the city’s main railway station at Piazza Garibaldi.  In her handbag was the Smith and Wesson revolver Pasquale had handed to her on their wedding day in a symbolic gesture as he pledged to reform his life.

As soon as Esposito identified himself she drew it, gripping it in both hands as she pulled the trigger. Esposito fell to the floor and once satisfied he was dead Assunta and Ciro left horrified customers to contemplate what they had just seen.

She was arrested a couple of months later and detained in the prison at Poggioreale, not far from the city’s Capodichino airport, where she gave birth to her son, Pasquale Jnr.

It was four years before the case came to trial.  The New York Times and Time magazine were among a swathe of news organisations that covered the trial and crowds gathered every day outside the courtroom in such numbers that the court decided to set up microphones and speakers so that proceedings could be followed outside.  There were factions, who called themselves Pupettisti – those vocally supporting Pupetta – and Antipupettisti, who were against her.

Assunta argued that she acted out of passion and self-defence, fearing she would also be killed.  But the prosecuting magistrate argued successfully that the killing was part of a wider gang war. Orlando was jailed for 30 years for murdering Simonetti, Assunta received an 18-year sentence for killing Esposito and her brother, Ciro, 12 years for his role in facilitating Assunta’s crime.

The sentence for Assunta was reduced to 13 years and four months on appeal, with Ciro acquitted altogether. Assunta, who became a leader among her fellow female inmates in jail, was pardoned in 1965.

Maresca (right) with the actress Manuela Arcuri, who
portrayed her in a 2013 TV drama

She admitted later that the killing, although driven by grief, was also a matter of honour. She planned to take over Pasquale’s criminal activity and knew that to do so she would have to command respect, which in the Camorra world meant being seen to avenge her husband’s murder personally.

On her release, she took advantage of her celebrity, actually playing herself in a 1967 movie based on her life, and trading on her glamorous notoriety by opening two fashion shops in Naples.

She took up with another mobster, Umberto Ammaturo, with whom she had twins, Roberto and Antonella, although they never married.

The relationship survived despite the death in 1974 of Pasquale Jnr, who was determined to be a worthy son to his late father by becoming a significant figure in the Camorra.  He was killed in an ambush and Pupetta suspected her partner, who had been a rival of her husband and always felt uneasy with Pasquale Jnr’s ambitions.

In time, though, they drifted apart and separated in 1982, when Pupetta was jailed following the murder of Aldo Semerari, a corruptible psychiatrist, criminologist and forensic scientist who had previously offered ‘helpful’ diagnoses on behalf of the Nuova Famiglia, the arm of the divided Camorra to which Pupetta and Ammaturo were affiliated, but had jumped ship to keep rival boss Raffaele Cutolo, head of the Nuova Camorra Organizzata, out of jail by testifying that he was insane.

She was eventually released for lack of evidence but, on suspicion of Camorra association, all her assets were seized. Nowadays, in her 80s, Pupetta has become a reclusive figure, reportedly dividing her time between apartments in Castellammare and the resort of Sorrento, some 20km (12 miles) further along the bay.

The celebrated director Francesco Rosi made a film, La sfida, about her life in 1958 and she was the subject of a mini-series on TV as recently as 2013, when the producers were accused by some anti-Mafia campaigners of glamourising crime.

Castellammare di Stabia's bandstand - the cassa armonica -
is a famous landmark in the resort

Travel tip:

Much of Castellammare di Stabia, a resort about 30km (19 miles) from Naples that became a major centre for shipbuilding on the Bay of Naples, was built over the Roman city of Stabiae, which was destroyed along with Pompeii and other Roman towns in the Vesuvius eruption of 79AD.  Pliny the Elder, the philosopher and naval and army commander of the early Roman empire, is said to have died in the eruption.  Once a bustling resort, it is famous for the ornate cast-iron and glass bandstand on the seafront, constructed originally in 1900 and restored in 1911.

The cathedral at Pompei, where Maresca was married in 1955

Travel tip:

The impressive Pontifical Shrine of the Blessed Virgin of the Rosary of Pompei, the cathedral of the new Pompei in Campania, a town of around 25,000 people about 25km (15 miles) south of Naples close to the ruins of the former Roman city that attract millions of visitors every year, was built from a dilapidated former church by Bartolo Longo, a lawyer who had returned to the Christian faith after a period following alternative beliefs, over a 28-year period between 1873 and 1901. The statue of the Virgin of the Rosary that sits atop the façade was carved from a single block of Carrara marble by Gaetano Chiaromonte.

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Dino Meneghin – basketball player

Italy’s biggest star won 32 trophies and Olympic medal

Dino Meneghin in 1980, the year his Olympic
silver medal followed a domestic treble

Dino Meneghin, universally recognised as the greatest Italian player in basketball history, was born on this day in 1950 in Alano di Piave, a village in the Veneto.

The first Italian and only the second European player to be drafted by a National Basketball Association team when he was picked by the Atlanta Hawks in 1970, Meneghin enjoyed a professional career spanning 28 years.

He did not retire until he was 44 years old and had played in a professional match against his own son, Andrea, having won 32 trophies including 12 Italian national championships and seven EuroLeague titles.

Meneghin also participated in four OIympic basketball tournaments, winning a silver medal in the 1980 Games in Moscow. His international career amounted to 271 appearances for Italy, in which he scored 2,847 points.

Brought up in Varese in Lombardy, Meneghin was always exceptionally tall, growing to a height of 6ft 9ins (2.06m), and was earmarked for an athletic career.  He and his brother Renzo would train together, Renzo as a middle-distance runner, Dino as a shot-putter and discus thrower.

It just happened that in 1963 his school entered a basketball tournament and his PE teacher, looking at who might be a candidate for the school team, naturally wanted to see whether Dino had the skills to go with his height.

Meneghin father and son: on court in
1990 with son Andrea (left)

He asked Dino to perform a series of runs and movements and was sufficiently encouraged to ask him to return the following day with some basketball shoes.  Many years later, in his autobiography, Meneghin revealed that when he asked his mother if he could have some basketball shoes she confessed she had not even heard of basketball, let alone knew where to buy the requisite footwear.

Nonetheless, he played in the tournament, impressing his teacher so much he was recommended for a trial with Pallacanestro Varese, better known as Ignis Varese after the electrical appliance firm that were its sponsors, and one of the leading clubs in the Italian Basketball League.

Three years later, at the age of 16 years and 11 months, he made his professional debut, beginning what would be a career of extraordinary success.

Playing in the key position of center, which normally goes to the tallest player on the team, Meneghin helped Varese win seven Italian championships between 1969 and 1977, plus four Italian Cups, five European (EuroLeague) Cups, two Cup-Winners’ Cups and two Intercontinental Cups.

After Varese had won the treble of domestic league and cup and the European crown in 1970, Meneghin was entered for the NBA draft, the first Italian to be given that honour.  In the event, though selected by Atlanta, he did not take up the chance to play as it would have meant turning his back on his international career.

Had that happened his participation in the Munich, Atlanta, Moscow and Los Angeles Olympics would not have taken place, nor would he have supplemented his silver medal in Moscow, in which Italy were beaten by Yugoslavia in the final in the absence of the USA, with bronze medals at the European championships in 1971 and 1975 and gold at the 1983 finals in France.

Meneghin in retirement as president of
the Italian Basketball Federation

Meneghin spent 14 years with Varese before joining Olimpia Milano in 1980 and continuing his success, winning five more Italian league titles, two Italian Cups, two EuroLeague titles and another Intercontinental Cup.

After 10 years in Milan, he moved again in 1990 to Stefanel Trieste, where in November 1990 he enjoyed the emotional experience of playing against his son, Andrea, who had started out in the same way as his father, making his debut for Varese at the age of 16.

Andrea was to go on to win a first Italian title with Varese in 1999, in the same year winning a European championship gold medal for Italy in a team of which his father was sitting on the bench as manager.

Since retiring, Dino has been inducted to the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame – only the second Italian to be granted the accolade, the most prestigious in the sport, after Cesare Rubini, the former Milano player and coach.

He has also served as president of the Italian Basketball Federation, made an honorary citizen of Varese and handed the keys to Alano di Piave.

In 2015, he was named on a list of 100 Italian sportsmen and women to be commemorated in a new Walk of Fame of Italian Sport, connecting the Avenue of the Olympics with the Olympic Stadium at the Foro Italico in Rome.

Nowadays, Meneghin lives in Alice Bel Colle, a pretty village in rolling countryside in the province of Alessandria in Piedmont, about 100km (62 miles) southeast of Turin and 80km (50 miles) northwest of the Ligurian capital of Genoa.

Varese's town hall is the Palazzo Estense, set in several
acres of beautiful gardens

Travel tip:

The city of Varese, in an area in the foothills of the Alps that owes its terrain to the activities of ancient glaciers that created 10 lakes in the immediate vicinity, including Lago di Varese, which this elegant provincial capital overlooks.  Most visitors to the city arrive there because of the Sacro Monte di Varese (the Sacred Hill of Varese), which features a picturesque walk passing 14 monuments and chapels, eventually reaching the monastery of Santa Maria del Monte.  But the town itself and the handsome villas and palaces in the centre and the surrounding countryside are interesting in their own right, reflecting the prosperity of the area. The grand Palazzo Estense is one, now the city's Municipio - the town hall.

The village of Alano di Piave in Veneto, viewed from
the foothills of Monte Grappa

Travel tip:

Meneghin’s home village of Alano di Piave is situated in a beautiful valley in the northern area of Veneto, at the foot of Monte Grappa, in an area popular with climbers and walkers. Some 35km (22 miles) northeast of Bassano del Grappa and a similar distance southwest of Belluno, overlooking the fast-flowing Piave river, it is close to Valdobbiadene, the wine-growing area in the province of Treviso most famous for producing the finest Prosecco.

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Pope Gregory XI returns the papacy to Rome

Important date in Roman and papal history

Pope Gregory XI was the last French pope
and the last to rule from Avignon

The French Pope, Gregory XI, returned the papacy to Rome, against the wishes of France and several of his cardinals, on this day in 1377.

The move back to Rome was a highly significant act in history as the papacy, from that date onwards, was to remain in the city.

Gregory was born Pierre-Roger De Beaufort in Limoges. He was the last French pope, and he was also the last pope to reign from Avignon, where he had been unanimously elected in 1370.

He immediately gave consideration to returning the papacy to Rome in order to conduct negotiations for reuniting the Eastern and Western Churches and to maintain papal territories against a Florentine revolt being led by the powerful Visconti family.

But Gregory had to shelve his Roman plan temporarily in order to strive for peace between England and France after another phase in the Hundred Years’ War started.

However, in 1375, he defeated Florence in its war against the Papal States and the following year, he listened to the pleas of the mystic Catherine of Siena, later to become a patron saint of Italy, to move the papacy back to Rome.

Giovanni di Paolo's painting depicts the meeting
of Catherine of Siena with Gregory XI at Avignon

After peace was concluded against Florence, Gregory returned the papal court to Rome, entering the city on 17 January 1377, ending nearly 70 years of popes residing in Avignon.

His last few months in Rome were marred by conflict and at one stage he had to flee to Anagni, a town outside the city. Gregory died in March 1377 in Rome and was interred in the church of Santa Maria Nuova.

But the move back to Rome he brought about was important in papal history. Since then, the papacy, despite the reigns of antipopes in other cities, has always remained in Rome.

After Gregory’s death, the College of Cardinals was threatened by a Roman mob that broke into the voting chamber to try to force an Italian pope into the papacy.

The Italians chose Urban VI, but the Cardinals were against him and withdrew to Fondi, the city between Rome and Naples that was the home of the powerful Caetani family, where they annulled the election of Urban and elected a French pope, Clement VII.

This election of rival popes caused the split known as the Western Schism, forcing Europe into a dilemma about papal allegiance.

The Schism was not resolved fully until the Council of Constance was held by the College of Cardinals between 1414 and 1418. The Council deposed both popes and elected the Roman-born Martin V.

After a long stay in Florence, Martin V entered Rome in 1420 and immediately set to work restoring order and repairing dilapidated churches and palaces.

The papal residence in Anagni was a retreat for many
popes seeking refuge from Rome

Travel tip:

Anagni, where Pope Gregory XI briefly sought refuge, is an ancient town in the province of Frosinone in Lazio. It is south east of Rome in an area known as Ciociaria, named after the primitive footwear, ciocie, a type of sandal, worn by people living in the area. During medieval times many popes chose to reside in Anagni, considering it safer and healthier than Rome. The town produced four popes, the last one being Boniface VIII, who was hiding out there in 1303 when he received the famous Anagni slap, delivered by an angry member of the fiercely antipapal Colonna family after he refused to abdicate. After his death the power of the town declined and the papal court was transferred to Avignon. The medieval Palace of Boniface VIII, is near the Cathedral in the centre of the town. Close by there is a restaurant named Lo Schiaffo - The Slap.

Gregory XI's tomb at the Basilica di Santa
Francesca Romana, near the Roman Forum

Travel tip:

The church of Santa Maria Nuova, where Pope Gregory XI is buried, adjoins the Roman Forum and is now known as the Basilica di Santa Francesca Romana, off the piazza of the same name. The tomb of Pope Gregory XI is in the south transept of the church and was reconstructed in 1584 to a design by Per Paulo Oliviero.

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Niccolò Piccinni – opera composer

Writer drawn into 18^th century Paris rivalry

Niccolò Piccinni was one of Italy's most
popular composers in the 18th century

The composer Niccolò Piccinni, one of the most popular writers of opera in 18^th century Europe, was born on this day in 1728 in Bari.

Piccinni, who lived mainly in Naples while he was in Italy, had the misfortune to be placed under house arrest for four years in his 60s, when he was accused of being a republican revolutionary.

He is primarily remembered, though, for having been invited to Paris at the height of his popularity to be drawn unwittingly into a battle between supporters of traditional opera, with its emphasis on catchy melodies and show-stopping arias, and those of the German composer Christoph Willibald Gluck, who favoured solemnly serious storytelling more akin to Greek tragedy.

Piccinni’s father was a musician but tried to discourage his son from following the same career. However, the Bishop of Bari, recognising Niccolò’s talent, arranged for him to attend the Conservatorio di Sant’Onofrio in Capuana in Naples.

He was a prolific writer. His first opera, a comedy entitled Le donne dispettose (The mischievous women) was staged at the Teatro dei Fiorentini in Naples in 1755 and after he had formed a working partnership with the acclaimed librettist Pietro Metastasio his catalogue of works was already well into double figures when the success of one particular composition won him popularity across Europe.

La buona figliuola (The good daughter), also known as La Cecchina, was essentially an opera buffa – a light-hearted comedy – for which the libretto was written by the famous playwright Carlo Goldoni.

Carlo Goldoni, the Venetian playwright, wrote
the libretto for Piccinni's first major success

It premiered at the Teatro delle Dame in Rome in 1760 and was so popular it enjoyed a two-year run, acquiring such a reputation as a crowd pleaser that it was soon attracting packed houses in every capital city in Europe.  What set it apart was that it was a comedy with dramatic elements and a soft sentimentality designed to touch the emotions of the audience.

The public enthusiasm for the story was such that a commercial spin-off industry developed around it almost in the manner of box-office successes of today, with fashion houses and shops trading on the La Cecchina name.

The new sentimental style caught on with other composers, eager to match Piccinni’s success, but at the same time there was a backlash among conservatives, who felt music, and opera in particular, should be about strength and manliness and saw this brand of modern Italian music as rather effete, promoting effeminacy and cowardliness rather than courage and moral virtue.

Among those composers who had their support was Gluck, the German who had found favour with the Hapsburg court in Vienna.  Gluck moved to Paris in the 1770s and when Queen Marie Antoinette invited Piccinni to live and work in the French capital, the directors of the Academie Royale de Musique, as the Paris Opera was then known, saw the commercial potential in pitting the two against one another.

They invited each to compose his own interpretation of the same texts and deliberately encouraged the Parisian public to fall into one or the other of two camps – the Gluckists and the Piccinnists. The antagonism between some factions became quite ugly.

The Piccinni statue in his
home city of Bari

The irony was that Piccinni admired Gluck and while in Paris, excited by the chance to compose pieces of greater substance, he collaborated with the celebrated French dramatist Jean-Francois Marmontel on several projects that he hoped would advance the cause of operatic reform that Gluck and his intellectual supporters were proposing.

The French Revolution in 1789 – two years after the death of Gluck - brought to an end Piccinni’s time in Paris and he returned to Naples, where he was given a warm welcome by King Ferdinand IV, whose wife Maria Carolina was the ill-fated Marie Antoinette’s sister, only to fall out of favour when his daughter’s marriage to a French democratic republican brought him under suspicion of connections and sympathies with the revolutionaries whose influence Ferdinand feared.

The king’s attitude towards any suspected republicans in Naples had been uncompromising and many were rounded up and shot. Piccinni was spared that fate but remained under house arrest for four years.

His fame long since faded, he spent the years after his release eking out an uncertain living in Naples, Venice and Rome before returning to Paris in 1798, where he was received with enthusiasm but struggled to make much money, although with the support of friends he was able to settle in the comfortable suburb of Passy, where he died in 1800 at the age of 72.

Piccinni’s life is commemorated with a statue in the Piazza della Prefettura in his home city of Bari in Puglia.

Porta Capuana in Naples used to be part of the city's
ancient Aragonese walls

Travel tip:

Capuana is the area of Naples close to Porta Capuana, a now free-standing gateway that was once part of the Aragonese walls of the city.  Situated roughly between the city’s main railway station and the Duomo.  The Conservatorio di Sant’Onofrio, which was in time absorbed into the Naples Conservatory, used to be close to the Castel Capuano, originally a 12^th-century fortress which has been modified several times.  Until recently, the castle was home to the city’s Hall of Justice, also known as the Vicaria, comprising legal offices and a prison.

The pretty Via Margutta in Rome, close to where the
Teatro delle Dame stood in the 18th and early 19th centuries

Travel tip:

In the 18^th century, Rome’s Teatro delle Dame vied with the Teatro Capranica for the right to be called the city’s leading opera house, staging many premieres of works by the leading composers of the day. Built in 1713 specifically to stage opera seria – as opposed to opera buffa – and remained a major venue until the early 19^th century, when it was used more often for public dancing, acrobatic shows and plays in local Roman dialect.  Completely destroyed by fire in 1863, it stood where Via Aliberti joins Via Margutta in an area of pretty, narrow streets close to Piazza di Spagna in the direction of Piazza del Popolo.

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Paolo Sarpi – writer and statesman

Patriotic Venetian who the Pope wanted dead

Paolo Sarpi was an outspoken critic of
the Catholic Church

Historian, scientist, writer and statesman Paolo Sarpi died on this day in 1623 in Venice.

He had survived an assassination attack 16 years before and was living in seclusion, still preparing state papers on behalf of Venice, writing, and carrying out scientific studies.

The day before his death he had dictated three replies to questions about state affairs of the Venetian Republic.

He had been born Pietro Sarpi in 1552 in Venice. His father died while he was still a child and he was educated by his uncle, who was a school teacher, and then by a monk in the Augustinian Servite order.

He entered the Servite order himself at the age of 13, assuming the name of Fra Paolo. After going into a monastery in Mantua, he was invited to be court theologian to Duke Guglielmo Gonzaga.

He then went to Milan, where he was an adviser to Charles Borromeo, the archbishop of Milan, before being transferred back to Venice to be professor of philosophy at the Servite convent.

At the age of 27, Sarpi was sent to Rome, where he interacted with three successive popes. He then returned to Venice, where he spent 17 years studying. His writings were highly critical of the Catholic Church.

Pope Paul V, who plotted to have
Sarpi killed

Sarpi was a defender of the liberties of Republican Venice and a proponent of the separation of the church and state.

After Paul V was made pope, Venice adopted measures to restrict papal prerogative, but Paul V excommunicated the Venetians. Sarpi entered the argument and set out principles, which struck radically at papal intervention in secular matters. A compromise was finally arranged between the Pope and Venice through Henry IV of France

Afterwards, however, Sarpi became the target of an assassination attempt instigated by the Pope. In 1607, an unfrocked friar assisted by two other people agreed to kill Sarpi for the sum of 8,000 crowns, but the plot was discovered and they were arrested and imprisoned after crossing into Venetian territory.

The following month Sarpi was attacked and left for dead with 15 stiletto thrusts. His attackers were welcomed back into papal territory but the pope’s enthusiasm for them cooled after he discovered Sarpi had survived his injuries.

His would-be assassins settled in Rome and were granted a pension by the viceroy of Naples.

Plots continued to be formed against Sarpi and he occasionally occasionally spoke of taking refuge in England.

But he stayed in Venice and served the state until the end. His last words are said to have been: ‘Esto perpetua,’ or ‘May she endure forever.’

These words were later adopted as the state motto of American state of Idaho and appear on the back of the 2007 Idaho quarter.

The statue of Parlo Sarpi in Campo
Santa Fosca in Cannaregio in Venice

Travel tip:

A bronze statue of Paolo Sarpi stands on a monument to him in Campo Santa Fosca in the Cannaregio district of Venice near Strada Nova. It is close to the place where he was stabbed by the Pope’s would-be assassins.

Travel tip:

Liceo Classico Paolo Sarpi, established in 1803, is a public high school in Bergamo’s Città Alta, which is ranked highly nationally because of the teaching methods and the subjects studied. Students shared their experience in a 2012 television documentary film, Gli anni e I giorni.

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Franchino Gaffurio – composer

Musician whose name has lived on for centuries in Milan

Da Vinci's Portrait of a Musician, of which
Gaffurio is thought to have been the subject 

Renaissance composer Franchino Gaffurio was born on this day in 1451 in Lodi, a city in Lombardy some 40km (25 miles) southeast of Milan.

He was to become a friend of Leonardo da Vinci later in life and may have been the person depicted in Leonardo’s famous painting, Portrait of a Musician.

The oil on wood painting, which Da Vinci is thought to have completed in around 1490, is housed in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan.

Gaffurio was born into an aristocratic family, who sent him to a Benedictine monastery, where he acquired musical training.

He later became a priest and lived in Mantua and Verona before setting in Milan, where he became maestro di cappella (choirmaster) at the Duomo in 1484. He was to retain the post for the rest of his life.

Gaffurio was one of Italy’s most famous musicians in the late 15^th and early 16^th centuries and as such met composers from all over Europe while working in Milan and wrote books of instruction for young composers.

One of his most famous comments was that the tactus, the tempo of a semibreve, is equal to the pulse of a man who is breathing quietly, at about 72 beats per minute.

The entrance to the Franco Gaffurio
Music School in Lodi

During his years in Milan, Gaffurio wrote masses, motets and hymns, many for ceremonial occasions held by the Sforza family.

Some of his music shows the influence of Josquin des Prez, a French composer he became friends with, and also the many composers from the Netherlands, who were drawn to Milan, which was a centre of musical activity at the time.

The Duomo in Milan to this day has a school for choirboys known as The Franchino Gaffurio School, named after the choirmaster, composer and teacher, whose music had resounded in the Duomo 600 years before.

Gaffurio died in 1522 in Milan and was buried in the Church of San Marcellino at Porta Comasina, one of the gates to the city, which was renamed Porta Garibaldi in 1860.

The Piazza della Vittoria in Lodi

Travel tip:

One of the main sights in Lodi, where Gaffurio was born, is Piazza della Vittoria, listed by the Italian Touring Club as one of the most beautiful squares in Italy, as it features porticoes on all four sides. Accademia Gaffurio in Via Solferino teaches music and dance and organises musical events and concerts. It was founded as the Franchino Gaffurio Music School in 1917.

The Duomo in Milan, where Gaffurio was maestro di
cappella from 1484 until his death in 1522

Travel tip:

The Duomo in Milan, where Gaffurio was maestro di cappella, was built in 1386 using Candoglia marble, which was transported along the Navigli canals. It was consecrated in 1418, yet remained unfinished until the 19th century, when Napoleon had the façade completed, before being crowned King of Italy there.

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Renato Bruson – operatic baritone

Donizetti and Verdi specialist rated among greats

Renato Bruson, pictured not long after
his debut in the 1960s.

The opera singer Renato Bruson, whose interpretation of Giuseppe Verdi’s baritone roles sometimes brought comparison with such redoubtable performers as Tito Gobbi, Ettore Bastianini and Piero Cappuccili, was born on this day in 1936 in the village of Granze, near Padua.

Bruson’s velvety voice and noble stage presence sustained him over a career of remarkable longevity. He was still performing in 2011 at the age of 75, having made his debut more than half a century earlier.

Since then he has devoted himself more to teaching masterclasses, although he did manage one more performance of Verdi’s Falstaff, which was among his most famous roles, at the age of 77 in 2013, having been invited to the Teatro Verdi in Busseto, the composer’s home town in Emilia-Romagna, as part of a celebration marking 200 years since Verdi’s birth.

Today he is director of the Accademia Lirica at Teatro alla Scala in Milan, a role he combines with a professorship at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena and a post at the lyrical academy in Spoleto.

It was at the Teatro Lirico Sperimentale in Spoleto, the ancient city in Umbria, that Bruson made his stage debut as the Conte di Luna in Verdi’s Il trovatore in 1960, which was a moment that brought deep satisfaction after a difficult childhood.

The parish church of Santa Cristina in Granze near Padua,
where Bruson sang in the choir as a boy

Born into a family of modest means, he found it difficult to convince his parents that if they allowed him to pursue his desire to study music it would not make him appear to others as workshy.

In an interview many years later, Bruson said that the older generation in Granze as he was growing up took the view that people who went straight from school into the world of work could look forward to a prosperous future, whereas those who preferred to continue their studies were destined never to find their path in life.

Therefore he was given little support from his family, even though they had encouraged him to sing in the parish choir. Fortunately, he was awarded a scholarship by the Conservatory of Padua, 30km (19 miles) away.

His debut in Spoleto was well received and he was soon making his mark at some of the great opera houses of Italy, including the Teatro dell’Opera in Rome (1961), La Fenice in Venice (1965) and the Teatro Massimo in Palermo (1966).

The Teatro Regio in Parma, where Bruson was
seen by a talent scout from the Met

His big break came in 1967, when he sang the role of Don Carlo di Vargas in Verdi’s La forza del destino at the Teatro Regio in Parma.

In the audience was Roberto Bauer, whose job was to scour Europe looking for new talent for the Metropolitan Opera in New York.  He was so impressed he sought out Bruson afterwards so that he could arrange a meeting with the Met’s artistic director, Rudolf Bing.  Two years later, Bruson was making his debut on the other side of the Atlantic as Enrico in Gaetano Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor.

In the early part of his career, in particular, Bruson was associated with Donizetti’s baritones as much as Verdi’s, performing in no fewer than 17 operas from the pen of the Bergamo composer.

Over the next few years, Bruson paraded his acting skills, the deep but smooth resonance of his voice and his commanding stage presence at Europe’s leading opera houses.

Another milestone moment came in 1972 with his debut as Antonio in Donizetti’s Linda di Chamounix at La Scala.

In 1975 he took his first bows at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, London, as Renato in Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera, and in 1978 came his debut at the Vienna State Opera in Macbeth, the Shakespeare play upon which Verdi had based his 10^th opera in 1847.

Renato Bruson in more recent years

In the meantime, he had also begun what was to be a long and fruitful collaboration with the conductor Riccardo Muti, who was particularly appreciative of Bruson’s vocal style, which had deep resonance without the thunderous qualities associated with some baritones. The singer always wanted audiences to appreciate the quality of his voice, rather than the volume, and to go home “with something in their hearts rather than some sounds in their ears.”

Bruson is married to Tita Tegano, a costume and set designer who has also written several books about the life and work of her husband. In 1996 he was made Knight of the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic.

Last year, his career was celebrated again as he was named as the recipient of the Caruso Prize in recognition of his lifetime contribution to the opera genre.  The award is made annually in a ceremony at the Villa Caruso di Bellosguarda in Tuscany, former home of the great Neapolitan tenor and now a museum.

The well-preserved castle at Spoleto

Travel tip:

The ancient city of Spoleto in Umbria, where Bruson made his first appearance in a live opera performance, has a long association with music and other performing arts, which it celebrates every summer with the Festival dei Due Mondi, which sees events taking place in churches, theatres and open squares throughout the city and attracts a high calibre of performers during June and July. Spoleto also has some fine architecture, including a beautiful 12^th-century Duomo which has frescoes by Fra Filippo Lippi, who is buried in the church.  The city also has the remains of a Roman amphiteatre and an imposing castle, parts of which go back to the fifth century.

Padua's Palazzo della Ragione

Travel tip:

The city of Padua’s biggest attraction is the beautiful Scrovegni Chapel, made famous by the wonderful frescoes painted by Giotto, but there is plenty more to the Veneto’s second largest city, including a wealth of parks and gardens and a city centre where you will find many more students and local people than tourists.  This is despite Padua boasting the two fine basilicas of Sant’Antonio and Santa Giustina, the oval piazza known as Prato della Valle, the historic centre built around the Duomo, the Palazzo della Ragione and a University established in 1222 at which Galileo Galilei was a lecturer.

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