Lorenzo Amoruso - footballer

Defender was most successful Italian in British football

Amoruso was the first Catholic to be named
as captain of the Glasgow club, Rangers

Lorenzo Amoruso, a defender who played for teams in Italy, San Marino, England and Scotland during a career spanning almost two decades, was born on this day in 1971 in Bari.

Formerly the captain of Fiorentina, Amoruso signed for Glasgow Rangers for £4 million in 1997 and remained at the Scottish club for six seasons, during which time he won nine major trophies, which makes him the most successful Italian player in British football.

The first Catholic player to captain Rangers - traditionally the club supported by Glasgow’s Protestant community - Amoruso won the Scottish Premier League title three times, the Scottish Cup three times and the Scottish League Cup three times.

His total of winners’ medals dwarfs those of much higher profile Italian stars in England.

The illustrious Chelsea trio of Gianfranco Zola, Gianluca Vialli and Roberto di Matteo each won two FA Cup and League Cup winners’ medals, but did not feature in a Premier League title-winning team.

Mario Balotelli was part of the Manchester City team that won the FA Cup in 2011 and the Premier League the following year, famously providing the pass, while lying on his back, that set up the Argentinian Sergio Aguero to score the title-winning goal four minutes into stoppage time in City’s final match of the season.  But he stayed with the club for only half a seasons more.

Signing

Amoruso began his career with his local team in Bari before moving to Florence in 1995, captaining the team that won the Coppa Italia in 1996 and reached the semi-finals of the European Cup-Winners’ Cup the following season.

Amid rumours that he was to join Manchester United in the English Premier League, Amoruso signed instead for Rangers.

It was a major coup for the Scottish club, as Serie A at that time was still one of the most glamorous leagues in the world and, at 26, Amoruso was much younger than most of Italy’s previous footballing exports, who tended to leave only when their careers were drawing to a close.

But he was attracted by the prospect of playing in the Champions League and excited by the atmosphere generated when the famous Ibrox Stadium was full.  The club was also ambitious to make a good show in Europe and establish superiority over city rivals Celtic and players such as Paul Gascoigne and Brian Laudrup were among a raft of new signings.

His time at Ibrox had its ups and downs. For example, he missed most of his first season with an Achilles tendon injury and fell out several times with the club’s Dutch manager, Dick Advocaat. He also had to apologise after TV microphones picked up some racist comments aimed at another player during a Champions League match.

Amoruso now works as a pundit on TV station TV8 in Italy

Nonetheless, he twice won Scotland’s domestic ‘treble’ - the Premier League, Scottish Cup and League Cup - in 1999 and 2003, and made more than 150 appearances for the club.

He left in the summer of 2003 only because Rangers were facing mounting debts and needed to sell players. Amoruso moved to the English Premier League to join Blackburn Rovers in a £1.4 million deal, having ended his Rangers career on a high note by scoring the winning goal in the 2003 Scottish Cup Final.

Although he scored a goal on his debut for Blackburn, his career in England was less successful and injuries restricted him to just 18 matches in three seasons.  His contract was not renewed in the summer of 2006, after which he effectively retired, although he did play for Cosmos of San Marino on a part-time basis.

Amoruso was never picked for the Italian national team, which he blamed on the tendency of coaches such as Giovanni Trapattoni and Cesare Maldini to have a distrust of Italian players who were based outside Italy.

Since retiring, Amoruso has forged a media career and currently works as a British football analyst for the TV8 television channel, based in Milan.

A characteristic street in Bari

Travel tip:

The city of Bari is situated on the Adriatic coast, roughly at the top of the heel of the Italian peninsula, a little more than 260km (162 miles) almost due east of Naples.  It is a busy port with a large commercial and industrial sector but has an interesting old town - Bari Vecchia - which comprises a maze of medieval streets occupying a headland overlooking the harbour. Within the old town are the Cattedrale di San Sebino, the Castello Svevo and the Basilico di San Nicola, which houses the remains of Saint Nicholas, also known as Santa Claus.

The Tower of Marathon at the Stadio
Artemio Franchi, home of Fiorentina

Travel tip:

Florence’s football stadium, the home of Fiorentina, is the Renaissance city’s best example of 20th century architecture.  Named the Stadio Artemio Franchi, after a former president of the Italian Football Federation, it was designed by the great modern architect, Pier Luigi Nervi, who was responsible during a long career for a diverse range of buildings around the world, including the Pirelli Tower in Milan, the UNESCO headquarters in Paris and the George Washington Bridge Bus Station in New York City. The focal point of the stadium, which Nervi built entirely of reinforced concrete, is the 70m (230ft) Tower of Marathon that carries the stadium’s flagstaff.  The stadium was originally named after a Florentine fascist, Giovanni Berta, before being changed to Stadio Communale.

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Giorgio Almirante – politician

Leader who tried to make Fascism more mainstream

Giorgio Almirante founded his party
shortly after the Second World War

Giorgio Almirante, the founder and leader of the neo-fascist Italian Social Movement, was born on this day in 1914 at Salsomaggiore Terme in Emilia Romagna.

He led his political party for long periods from 1946 until he handed over to his protégé, Gianfranco Fini, in 1987.

Almirante graduated in Literature and trained as a schoolteacher but went to work for the Fascist journal Il Tevere in Rome.

In 1944, he was appointed Chief of Cabinet of the Minister of Culture to the Italian Social Republic, the short-lived German puppet state of which Benito Mussolini was the head after he was thrown out of office as Italy’s prime minister.

After the Fascists were defeated, Almirante was indicted on charges that he had ordered the shooting of partisans, but these were lifted as part of a general amnesty.

He set up his own fascist group in 1946, which was soon absorbed into the Italian Social Movement (MSI).

He was chosen as the party leader to begin with but was forced to give way to August de Marsanich as leader in 1950.

Giorgio Almirante in 1971, reading about his party's
success in regional elections in Sicily

Almirante regained the leadership in 1969 and sought to make his party more moderate by dropping the black shirt and the Roman salute.

He placed anti-communism at the centre of his policies in order to rival the Christian Democrats and merged with the Italian Democratic Party of Monarchist Unity.

He helped the MSI become more politically acceptable and was allowed to enter Communist Party HQ in 1984 to pay his respects to their dead leader, Enrico Berlinguer, something that would have once been unimaginable.

Almirante stepped down as leader because of poor health and died in 1988 in Rome.

After Almirante's death, Fini took the MSI further towards a traditional conservative position in the political spectrum, ultimately joining with members of the disbanded Christian Democrats to form a new party, Alleanza Nazionale.

The Liberty-style baths at Salsomaggiore Terme

Travel tip:

Salsomaggiore Terme, where Almirante was born, is a popular spa town in the province of Parma in Emilia-Romagna. Its water is strongly saline and there are terme (baths) in the town that have been regarded as therapeutic since the reign of Marie Louise, Duchess of Parma early in the 19th century.

Parma is famous for parmesan
(parmigiano) cheese

Travel tip:

A university city in the Emilia-Romagna region, with a population of almost 200,000, Parma is famous for Grana Parmigiana (Parmesan) cheese and Prosciutto di Parma ham, as well as a wealth of Romanesque architecture, including a cathedral containing acclaimed frescoes by Antonio da Correggio, and a pink marble Baptistery next door. More works by Correggio - and by Canaletto - are displayed at the Galleria Nazionale inside Palazzo della Pilotta.

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San Marino is bombed by Britain

British believed the Germans were using rail facilities

The British thought the Germans were using the San Marino
rail network to transport weapons

The British Royal Air Force bombed the tiny Republic of San Marino on this day in 1944 as a result of receiving incorrect information.

It was recorded at the time that 63 people were killed as a result of the bombing, which was aimed at rail facilities. The British mistakenly believed that the Germans were using the San Marino rail network to transport weapons.

San Marino had been ruled by Fascists since the 1920s but had managed to remain neutral during the war.

After the bombing, San Marino’s government declared that no military installations or equipment were located on its territory and no belligerent forces had been allowed to enter.

A British soldier observing German
positions at the Battle of San Marino

However, by September of the same year San Marino was briefly occupied by German forces, but they were defeated by the Allied forces in the Battle of San Marino.

After the war, San Marino was ruled by the world’s first democratically-elected Communist government, which held office between 1945 and 1957.

The Republic of San Marino is not a member of the European Union but uses the euro as its currency.

The Fortress of Guaita in San Marino
towers over the Italian landscape

Travel tip:

San Marino, which is on the border between Emilia-Romagna and Marche, still exists as an independent state within Italy, situated on the northeast side of the Apennine mountains and surrounded by romantic battlements and towers, which can be seen from miles away against the skyline. San Marino claims to be the oldest surviving sovereign state and constitutional republic in the world. It covers an area of just 61 square kilometres, or 24 square miles.

The Palazzo Pubblico in San Marino

Travel tip:

San Marino’s official government building, the Palazzo Pubblico, is similar in design to the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence but is on a much smaller scale. It is in the heart of the Città di San Marino in Contrada del Pianello. Designed by the architect Francesco Azzurri it was built between 1884 and 1894.

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Marta Abba - actress

Aspiring star who became Pirandello’s muse

Marta Abba was just 24 when she met the
playwright Luigi Pirandello

Marta Abba, who as a young actress became the stimulus for the creativity of the great playwright Luigi Pirandello, was born on this day in 1900 in Milan.

The two met in 1925 when Pirandello, whose most famous works included the plays Six Characters in Search of an Author (1921) and Henry IV (1922), asked her to see him, having read an enthusiastic appreciation of her acting talents by Marco Praga, a prominent theatre critic of the day.

Abba had made her stage debut in Milan in 1922 in Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull and was noted for the exuberance and passion of her performances. Pirandello was impressed with her and immediately hired her as first actress for his Teatro d’Arte company in Rome.

Over the next nine years until Pirandello’s death in 1936, Abba would become not only his inspiration but his confidante. When Abba was not working with him but was on stage in some other city or country, they would correspond in writing, exchanging hundreds of letters.

Pirandello was said to be infatuated with Abba from
their first meeting in 1925 in Rome

There was a considerable age gap between them - Abba was 24 and Pirandello 58 when they met - and their relationship was complex and not always harmonious.  It has been speculated that there was a romance between them but any love affair was probably one-sided.

The Sicilian playwright, who was married but whose wife was in an asylum for the mentally ill, was infatuated with the young actress but it is thought it was a passion that was unconsummated, which meant that the relationship was a source of torment for Pirandello as well as one that inspired his creativity.

The eldest daughter of a Milan merchant, Abba went to a theatre school in Milan and was always set on a career in theatre.  Her collaboration with Pirandello, starring in many of his plays, would make her a significant figure in theatre in Italy.

Abba did not marry until after
Pirandello's death

In 1930 she founded her own theatrical company and specialized in staging the works of Pirandello and other European playwrights such as George Bernard Shaw, Gabriele d'Annunzio and Carlo Goldoni, under the direction of prestigious directors such as Max Reinhardt and Guido Salvini.

After Pirandello’s death, she moved to the United States, making her Broadway debut was in the play Tovarich, by the French writer Jacques Deval, at the Plymouth Theatre.

She remained single until after Pirandello’s death. In January 1938 she married a wealthy Cleveland polo player, Severance Allen Millikin.  They lived in Cleveland until they divorced in 1952, at which point Abba returned to Italy.

Her health remained robust until the last few years of her life, when she was confined to a wheelchair.  She spent the last few weeks before her death in 1988 receiving treatment at the spa town of San Pellegrino Terme, north of Bergamo.

She wrote an autobiography, La mia vita di attrice (My Life as an Actress). After her death, a collection she had kept of more than 500 letters between her and Pirandello was donated to the University of Princeton, in New Jersey.

The Art Nouveau Grand Hotel in San Pellegrino Terme

Travel tip:

San Pellegrino Terme is a small town in a little over 20km (12 miles) north of the city of Bergamo, in Lombardy, in the Val Brembana. Its name has become known all over the world because of the fame of its spring water, bottled by a company that marketed it as San Pellegrino mineral water. The company’s main production centre used to be in the town, which is also notable for several striking Art Nouveau buildings from the early 20th century, including the Casinò, the Grand Hotel and the Terme (Baths).

The Palazzo Chigi-Odescalchi in Rome

Travel tip:

Luigi Pirandello’s Teatro d’Arte company used to stage its productions at the Odescalchi Theatre inside the Palazzo Chigi-Odescalchi, in Piazza Santi Apostoli, a short distance from Piazza Venezia in the heart of Rome. The palace, which belonged originally to the Colonna family, was remodelled by Carlo Maderno before undergoing a later transformation under the great Roman sculptor and architect Gian Lorenzo Bernini, with later input from Nicola Salvi and Luigi Vanvitelli, with the façade on Via del Corso rebuilt by Raffaelo Ojetti.

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Battle of Custoza

Austrians thwart Italy’s hopes of unifying the peninsula

The Polish painter Juliusz Kossak's depiction of the Austrian
13th regiment attacking Italian bersaglieri during the battle.

An army of the recently unified Kingdom of Italy was driven out of Custoza in the Veneto region by Austrian troops on this day in 1866.

Although the Italians had twice the number of soldiers, the Austrians were victorious strategically and drove the Italians back across the Mincio river and out of the area then known as Venetia.

King Victor Emmanuel II’s younger son, Amadeo, was severely wounded in the battle but he survived his injuries and went on to reign briefly as King of Spain from 1870 to 1873.

The German Kingdom of Prussia had declared war on the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Italy seized the opportunity to join forces with Prussia, with the intention of annexing Venetia and uniting the Italian peninsula. The Austrian Imperial army joined up with the Venetian army.

The Italians divided their troops into two armies, one led by General Alfonso Ferrero La Marmora, accompanied by the King, and the other led by Enrico Cialdini.

The Italian General Alfonso Ferrero La Mormora

La Marmora’s troops crossed the Mincio river and invaded Venetia. The Austrians led by Archduke Albrecht of Habsburg marched west from Verona to the north of the Italian position, so as to cut them off from the rear.

But on June 24, La Marmora changed the direction of his front and ended up colliding head on with the Austrians.

When the Austrians reacted by attacking them, the Italians panicked and took up a defensive position. By the middle of the day La Marmora had ordered a retreat, little realising that by then another Italian division had captured Belvedere Hill, overlooking Custoza. The troops on the hill found themselves isolated and after a bombardment by Austrian guns were driven out of Custoza.

However, for a number of reasons the Austrian did not pursue the Italians, squandering the chance to destroy their army. Only a month later the Austrians were forced to surrender to the Prussians and give up Venetia.

Scenes from the Italian side of the Battle of Custoza were recreated in the 1954 Luchino Visconti film, Senso.

The Ossario di Custoza

Travel tip:

Custoza is a village in the province of Verona in the Veneto. In memory of the two famous battles fought there during the wars for Italian independence, a memorial building, the Ossuary of Custoza - Ossario di Custoza - was built on the Belvedere Hill in 1879. Today, June 24, a ceremony will be held there to remember the soldiers who died on this day in the Battle of Custoza. For more information about the memorial, visit www.ossariodicustoza.com.

The village of Custoza in the Veneto

Travel tip:

Custoza is also famous for producing the prestigious white wine, Bianco di Custoza, which is sometimes referred to as the white equivalent of the red wine, Bardolino, produced nearby in the town of Bardolino on the shores of Lake Garda. Bianco di Custoza is dry and smooth with flowery and fruity notes, with hints of apples, lemon peel and peaches that linger on the tongue. The wine is best drunk within a year of the grape harvest.

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Giuseppina Tuissi - partisan

Key figure in capture and execution of Mussolini

Giuseppina Tuissi came from a strong
anti-fascist background near Milan

Giuseppina Tuissi, who was among a group of partisans who captured the deposed Fascist leader Benito Mussolini as he tried to escape to Switzerland in 1945, was born on this day in 1923 in Abbiategrasso, near Milan.

Tuissi and her comrades seized Mussolini at Dongo, a small town on the shores of Lake Como, on April 27, 1945, along with his mistress Claretta Petacci.  Having heard that Hitler was preparing to surrender to the Allies, Mussolini was trying to reach Switzerland before flying on to Spain in the hope of finding refuge under Franco’s nationalist dictatorship.

He and Petacci and their entourage were executed at the village of Giulino di Mezzegra the following day before the partisan group took their bodies to be put on public display in Milan.

Tuissi, however, would herself be killed less than a couple of months later, probably at the hands of fellow partisans who suspected her of betraying comrades during a period earlier in the year in which she had been held captive and tortured by Fascist militia and handed over to the Nazis but was then released.

Although she was born Abbiategrasso, about 30km (19 miles) southwest of Milan, Tuissi lived and worked in Baggio, a suburb of Milan. Her father Umberto, a blacksmith, her brother Cesare and boyfriend Gianni were active anti-fascist militants and members of the resistance movement.

In 1943, Tuissi became active in the movement, operating as a courier under the pseudonym Gianna.  Despite being small in stature and slight in build, she became known for her courage.

Luigi Canali, otherwise known as Captain Neri,
with whom Tuissi had a close bond

Her attitude towards the Fascists, who remained in control of the puppet Republic of Salò (also known as the Italian Social Republic) even after the Allied invasion, hardened after her boyfriend was captured and murdered by Fascist thugs.

She teamed up with the partisan Garibaldi Brigades, becoming a close associate of Luigi Canali, who operated under the pseudonym Captain Neri, and began plotting attacks on Fascist and German forces.

But they came under the surveillance of Mussolini’s secret police and were seized in the village of Lezzano by Fascist militia in January 1945, taken to a prison in Como and subjected to torture. Soon after being transferred to the German SS headquarters in Monza, where she was further tortured, she was released.

There has been speculation about why she was allowed to leave, ranging from a gestapo officer deciding to spare her after being struck by her bravery, to being allowed to leave so that she could be followed by SS officers and would lead them to Canali, who had managed to escape from prison.

It is said that she was offered the chance to flee to Switzerland but declined, preferring to remain in Italy to continue the work of the resistance.

However, the suspicion that she and Canali had betrayed their fellow resistance fighters while in captivity remained, even resulting in a death sentence being handed down by a “People’s Tribunal” , although their closest comrades in the 52nd Garibaldi Brigade ignored it, welcoming them back. Their leader appointed Canali to the rank of captain.

A small cross on a wall in Giulino di Mezzegra marks the spot
 at which Mussolini was killed by Tuissi and her comrades 

The day after the Mussolini execution, however, Tuissi was arrested in Baggio and held until May 9, during which time she was interrogated by Pietro Vergani, regional commander of the Garibaldi Brigades and a member of the Italian Communist Party. She was told that Canali had been executed.

Disillusioned and saddened by the death of her close colleague, she and Canali’s sister went to Milan to confront Vergani, demanding to know the circumstances of his death. Despite threats, Tuissi continued to ask questions and arranged to meet the editor of a daily newspaper in Milan.

She disappeared on April 23, 1945, her 22nd birthday. What happened to her has never been established but the suspicion is that her body was thrown into Lake Como at Cernobbio. This was backed up by the evidence of witnesses who saw two men and a girl arrive on a motorcycle at the lakeside in the town at around 9pm, heard shots and the sound of something hitting the water, then saw the motorcycle leave with the two men but no girl.

Four men were arrested, including Vergani and Dante Gorreri, the Communist Party secretary for Como, but all were released because of procedural irregularities.

The Visconti castle at Abbiategrosso in Lombardy

Travel tip:

Tuissi’s town of birth, Abbiategrosso, has a fine 14th century castle built by Gian Galeazzo Visconti and a basilica dedicated to Santa Maria Nuova that was built to celebrate the birth of Gian Galeazzo’s son, but its more recent claim to fame is as a prominent member of the Cittaslow movement, an offshoot of the Slow Food movement, which promotes a calm way of life and a spirit of neighbourliness. It has attracted many Milanese to buy property there to escapes the pressures associated with city life.

The sumptuous Villa d'Este on Lake Como at Cernobbio

Travel tip:

Cernobbio is known because of the presence of the Villa d’Este, the vast complex built as a 16th century summer residence for the Cardinal of Como, but it is only one of many fine villas fronting the water. The town once attracted large crowds hoping to catch a sight of movie star George Clooney, who had a house at nearby Laglio and would occasionally be spotted at a cafe in Cernobbio. Scenes from the movie Ocean’s 12, in which Clooney starred, were filmed locally. The place still has a neighborhood feel to it, especially on summer evenings and weekends when the main piazza is full of families and couples.

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Lucrezia Tornabuoni - political adviser

Medici wife one of most powerful women of the Renaissance

Domenico Ghirlandaio's portrait of Lucrezia
Tornabuoni, painted in around 1475

Lucrezia Tornabuoni, who became one of the most influential and therefore powerful women in 15th century Italy through family connections and her own political and business acumen, was born on this day in 1427 in Florence.

Connected by birth to the powerful Tornabuoni family on her father’s side and the Guicciardinis through her mother, Lucrezia entered a third powerful family when she married Piero di Cosimo de’ Medici.

Yet she was an important figure in her own right, revealing politic skill and a talent for diplomacy during her husband’s time as de facto leader of Florence and when their son, Lorenzo, succeeded him.

She was also a successful property owner, buying houses, shops and farms in and around Pisa and Florence, which she would then lease out. She bought and renovated a hot spring, Bagno a Morba, turning it into a resort and spa for paying guests.

And she enhanced her popularity in Florence by supporting religious convents and working with them to help widows and orphans. She would draw on her own income to provide dowries for women from poor families so that they could marry and use her influence to help family members obtain good positions in the church or government.

Tornabuoni’s father was Francesco di Simone Tornabuoni, a wealthy banker and elected magistrate. Well read and educated to a high standard in Latin and Greek, she was introduced to Piero di Cosimo de’ Medici through her father’s friendship with Cosimo de’ Medici. Her dowry of 1200 florins helped to seal the alliance between the families.

Piero di Cosimo de' Medici, depicted in a
16th century painting by Bronzino

She became adept in diplomacy and politics because her connections enabled her to build bridges between the Medici, who were essentially nouveau riche bankers, and the noble families of long-standing history.

When Piero took over the government in 1464, his health was poor and Lucrezia assumed an even greater role as his representative, helping him decide on important issues. She was also called on to mediate disputes, once ending a feud between two families that had gone on for 20 years.

Her prominence was not without pitfalls, however. In October 1467, she and her youngest son, Giuliano, were the targets of an assassination attempt linked to the rivalry between Piero and Luca Pitti. 

Lucrezia's influence increased still further in 1469 when Piero died and her son, Lorenzo, who would be known as Lorenzo the Magnificent, succeeded him as ruler of Florence, relying heavily on his mother’s advice and contacts.

In addition to her political and business interests, Lucrezia, who died in 1482, wrote religious stories, plays, and poetry and was a significant patron of the arts.

Around 1475, her brother Giovanni Tornabuoni, who was a papal ambassador and a banker, commissioned a portrait of her by Domenico Ghirlandaio, which is now in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. She is also thought to appear in various scenes in Ghirlandaio's frescoes in the Tornabuoni Chapel.

The Palazzo Corsi-Tornabuoni today

Travel tip:

The Palazzo Tornabuoni, the family home in Florence, was originally created for Giovanni Tornabuoni by merging a number of palaces in what is now the Via de’ Tornabuoni, connecting the Piazza Antinori with the Ponte Santa Trinità. Since the 16th century, when it was bought by the Corsi family, the palace has been known as the Palazzo Corsi-Tornabuoni.

The Gucci store in Via de' Tornabuoni

Travel tip:

The Via de’ Tornabuoni of today is well known as Florence’s high-fashion shopping street, characterised by the presence of exclusive stores belonging to houses such as Gucci, Salvatore Ferragamo, Enrico Coveri, Roberto Cavalli, Emilio Pucci and others, and also jewellery boutiques such as Damiani, Bulgari and Buccellati.

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