The 410 Sack of Rome

Invasion that signalled terminal decline of Western Roman Empire

Alaric and the Visigoths entering Rome, as depicted by the
19th century German artist Wilhelm Lindenschmit the Younger

The ancient city of Rome was left in a state of shock and devastation after three days of looting and pillaging by Visigoths under the command of King Alaric came to an end on this day in 410.

An unknown number of citizens had been killed and scores of others had fled into the countryside. Countless women had been raped. Many buildings were damaged and set on fire and Alaric and his hordes made off with vast amounts of Roman treasure.

It was the first time in 800 years that an invading army had successfully breached the walls of the Eternal City and many historians regard the event as the beginning of the end for the Western Roman Empire.

It could have been more devastating still had Alaric, a Christian, been a more cruel leader.  Although he struggled to control his men - historians believe they were an ill-disciplined rabble rather than an organised fighting force - he stopped short of ordering large-scale slaughter of the Roman population, while silver and gold objects they were told had belonged to St Peter were left behind.

A book illustration showing Alaric in Athens
after conquering the city in 395

It was brought to a swift conclusion because Alaric had other targets he wished to attack in the far south of Italy and in northern Africa. In the event, he died not long afterwards of a fever, somewhere near what is now the city of Cosenza in Calabria.

Alaric had risen to become King of the Visigoths in 395, the same year that saw the death of the Emperor Theodosius I, who had signed a peace treaty with the Goths in 382. Leadership of the Eastern and Western Empires was inherited by Theodosius’s two sons, Arcadius in the east and 10-year-old Honorius in the west. The western capital was moved from Rome to Ravenna, which was more easily defended.

Wanting to create a new settlement for his tribes, Alaric staged regular attacks in northern Italy in the early part of the fifth century but these were always repelled by Honorius’s regent, the brilliant military strategist and general Flavius Stilicho.

Stilicho, who was half-German, had many soldiers of German origin under his command and wanted to enlist the help of the Visigoths to fight against the Eastern Empire. Alaric himself had even served in battle under the command of Stilicho, whom he greatly admired and even considered a friend.

But his position changed when Honorius dismissed his demand to be given land and political power and he set his sights on Rome, which was still the symbolic heart of the Empire, even if the seat of government was now in Ravenna.

Alaric is buried in the bed of a river near where he died, along
with personal treasures, as imagined by Heinrich Leutemann

He was unconcerned about Honorius but knew he faced a formidable adversary in Stilicho and it was out of fear and respect for Stilicho that he stopped short of invading Rome after advancing to its gates in 408.

But after Stilicho, suspected of planning an insurrection, was executed on the orders of Honorius later the same year, the obstacle he presented was removed.

As a consequence, after long months laying siege to the city, during which time Roman citizens became hungrier and more desperate, Alaric first set a series of demands in front of Honorius, promising to call off the siege if they were met.  When they were refused, he ordered his tribes to enter the city on August 24, 410.  They did so without much of a fight, ushered in either by corrupt officials or rebellious slaves who opened the Salarian Gate.

The collapse of the Western Roman Empire did not happen as a direct result of Alaric’s invasion. In fact a more severe sacking of the city was still to come, carried out by the Vandals in 455, but the 410 invasion was a symbolic moment in an end game that was to reach its conclusion in 476, when another Germanic leader, Flavius Odoacer, removed the Western Roman Emperor, Romulus Augustulus, and declared himself King of Italy, which is the moment at which many historians consider the Western Empire to have been no more.

The facade of the cathedral in Cosenza

Travel tip:

Cosenza, a city with an urban area in which more than 260,000 people live, combines a no-nonsense modern city with a small and atmospheric old city, a medieval town with a network of steep, narrow streets, at the heart of which is a cathedral originally built in the 11th century.  The old town also boasts the 13th century Castello Svevo, built on the site of a Saracen fortification, which hosted the wedding of Louis III of Naples and Margaret of Savoy but which the Bourbons used as a prison.  The pedestrianized centre of the new city has sculptures by the likes of Dalí, De Chirico and Pietro Consagra.

Dante's tomb in Ravenna

Travel tip:

As well as being the former capital of the Western Roman Empire, Ravenna was also the city where the 13th century poet Dante Alighieri lived in exile until his death in 1321. Dante's tomb is in the church of San Pier Maggiore. The city is renowned for its wealth of well-preserved late Roman and Byzantine architecture and eight UNESCO World Heritage Sites. One of the most important examples of early Christian Byzantine art and architecture is the Basilica of San Vitale, which is famous for its fine Byzantine mosaics.

More reading:

How Rome was sacked by the Ostrogoths in 546

Mutinous troops sack Rome in 1527

The death of Dante Alighieri

Also on this day

1576: The death of the great Renaissance artist Titian

1707: The birth of actress Zanetta Farussi, mother of Casanova

Home

Carlo Camillo Di Rudio - soldier

Italian aristocrat who survived Battle of the Little Bighorn

Carlo Camillo Di Rudio spent 32 years
in the United States Army

Carlo Camillo Di Rudio, a military officer who became known as Charles Camillus DeRudio and gave 32 years’ service to the United States Army in the late 19th century, was born in Belluno in northern Italy on this day in 1832.

Having arrived in New York City as an immigrant from England in 1860, he served as a volunteer in the American Civil War (1861-65) before joining the Regular Army in 1867 as a 2nd lieutenant in the 2nd Infantry, an appointment which was cancelled when he failed a medical. Undeterred, he was readmitted and joined the 7th Cavalry in 1869, eventually attaining the rank of Major.

He participated in the Battle of the Little Bighorn, in which the US Army suffered a defeat to the combined forces of Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho tribesmen. The battle was part of the Great Sioux Wars of 1876, fought for possession of the Black Hills in South Dakota, where gold had been found.

DeRudio was thrown from his horse as the American forces under Major Marcus Reno were driven back across the Little Bighorn River to regroup on the eastern side. He was left stranded on the western side and hid for 36 hours with a private, Thomas O’Neill. They were twice almost captured but eventually managed to cross the river to safety.

DeRudio had led an eventful life even before his experiences in the US military, during which he also took part in the Nez Perce War on 1877, another conflict with Native Americans.

A scene from the Battle of the Little Bighorn, as depicted
by the artist Charles Marion Russell

Born the son of Count and Countess Aquila di Rudio, he attended an Austrian military academy in Milan before leaving at the age of 15 to join the Italian patriots during 1848 uprising known as the Five Days of Milan. Later, he fought in Rome and Venice against the Austrians.

Soon afterwards, he tried to sail to America but was shipwrecked off Spain. By 1855, he was living in east London and had married Eliza, the 15-year-old daughter of a confectioner from Nottingham, with whom he eventually had six children.

In 1858 he took part in a failed attempt to assassinate the Emperor of France, Napoleon III, at the Paris Opera.  The attempt, led by another Italian revolutionary, the Carbonari leader Felice Orsini, involved three bombs and killed eight people, wounding another 150, but missed its intended target.

Orsini and his co-conspirator, Giuseppe Pieri, were executed but DeRudio’s sentence was commuted to a life sentence to be served on Île Royale, a neighbour of Devil’s Island in the western Atlantic off French Guiana.  But he and 12 others escaped from the island and landed in what was then British Guiana, more than 800km (500 miles) along the northern coast of South America.

From there he returned to England but his taste for action would not be contained and he emigrated to the United States, specifically to fight on the Union side in the Civil War.  Once commissioned to serve in the Regular Army, he was never entirely trusted by his superiors, including the then Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer, who tended to disbelieve his accounts of his own military service career.

He retired on his 64th birthday and spent his final years in California, where he died in 1910 at the age of 78, while living in Pasadena.

Belluno sits in the shadow of the Dolomites

Travel tip:

Belluno, where DeRudio was born, is a beautiful town in the Dolomites, situated just over 100km (62 miles) north of Venice. The town sits in an elevated position above the Piave river surrounded by rocky slopes and dense woods that make for an outstanding scenic background. The architecture of the historic centre has echoes of the town's Roman and medieval past. Around the picturesque Piazza Duomo can be found several fine buildings, such as the Palazzo dei Rettori, the Cathedral of Belluno and Palazzo dei Giuristi, which contains the Civic Museum.

The Scuola Militare "Teulie" is in Corso Italia in Milan

Travel tip:

The military academy in Milan attended by DeRudio is known today as the Scuola Militare "Teulié", a highly selective institution attached to the Italian Army and, having been founded in 1802, one of the oldest military academies in the world. It was closed by the Austrians in 1848 after the cadets, of which DeRudio was one, took part in the Five Days of Milan, the uprising against the Austrians. It became a military hospital. During the early part of the 20th century it was a military barracks, becoming the headquarters of the III Corps of the Italian Army, before reverting to its former status as a military academy in 1996.

More reading:

How the citizens of Milan rose up to throw out the Austrians

The story of fighter pilot Silvio Scaroni

The pope from Belluno who was in office just 33 days

Also on this day:

303: The martyrdom of Sant'Alessandro of Bergamo

1498: Michelangelo accepts the commission to sculpt his masterpiece, La Pietà


Home

Galileo demonstrates potential of telescope

Scientist unveiled new instrument to Doge of Venice

How the Milanese artist Giuseppe Bertini imagined the
scene as Galileo demonstrated his telescope to the Doge

The scientist and inventor Galileo Galilei demonstrated the wonders of the telescope to an audience of Venetian lawmakers on this day in 1609.

The 90th Doge, Leonardo Donato, and other members of the Venetian senate accompanied Galileo to the top of the campanile of St Mark’s Basilica, where each took it in turn to look through the instrument.

The meeting had been arranged by Galileo’s friend, Paolo Sarpi, who was a scientist, lawyer and statesman employed by the Venetian government. The two were both professors at the University of Padua.

Galileo, whose knowledge of the universe led him to be called the ‘father of observational astronomy’, was for many years wrongly credited with the invention of the telescope when in fact the first to apply for a patent for the device was a Dutch eyeglass maker named Hans Lippershey.

However, Galileo’s work using uncertain details of Lippershey’s design certainly took the idea to a different level.

Like Galileo, Paolo Sarpi was a professor
at the University of Padua

Whereas Lippershey’s device magnified objects by about three times, Galileo eventually produced a telescope with a magnification factor of 30.

The one he demonstrated on August 25, 1609, is thought to have had a factor of about eight or nine.

Galileo was the first to realise the potential of the telescope for astronomical study.

He was able to make out mountains and craters on the moon, as well as a ribbon of diffuse light arching across the sky — the Milky Way.  Galileo also discovered the rings of Saturn, sunspots and four of Jupiter's moons.

It was his findings on Jupiter’s moons in January 1610 that would lead him indirectly into trouble with the Roman Inquisition over his belief in heliocentrism, the concept that the sun and not the Earth was the centre of the solar system, as had been theorised by the Polish scientist Nicolaus Copernicus in the previous century.

In observing the three objects in proximity to the planet Jupiter that he had originally thought to be distant stars, he noticed that their position relative to the planet changed in a way that would have been inexplicable if they had really been fixed stars.

One day he noticed that one of them had disappeared altogether only to reappear later and within a few days had concluded that they were orbiting Jupiter. When, later in the year, he discovered that the planet Venus had ‘phases’ similar to the earth’s Moon, when differences in appearance suggested different positions in the sky, he began to subscribe firmly to the Copernican theory.

This flew in the face of a major part of Roman Catholic belief, based on the Aristotelian principle that all heavenly bodies orbited the Earth.

In time, Galileo was found guilty of heresy and forced to recant his views under threat of torture. He would have spend the last years of his life in prison had the court not shown some clemency and commuted his sentence to house arrest.

The campanile of St Mark's is a famous landmark
in Venice, towering over the basilica

Travel tip:

The Campanile of St Mark’s has become one of the symbols of Venice, instantly recognisable as part of the landscape of St Mark’s Square - Piazza San Marco - standing away from the basilica itself. Constructed in the ninth century, one of its first uses was a watchtower or lighthouse. Over the centuries it has been restored and added to several times, often following regular lightning strikes.  It assumed its definitive shape in the 16th century with restorations made to repair damage caused by the earthquake of March 1511, when the belfry, attic and spire were added. The whole structure collapsed in 1902, a few days after a large crack appeared in the north wall, it is thought because of erosion of the foundations after almost 1,000 years, but was rebuilt over the following 10 years.

Travel tip:

Galileo lived under house arrest was Villa Gioella, a house he rented a couple of miles from the from the centre of Florence in the Arcetri hills.  In Galileo’s time it was a farmhouse, surrounded by many acres of land. The area is also home to the Arcetri Observatory, which was opened in 1872 after astronomers at La Specola Observatory, not far from the Pitti Palace, decided that pollution from artificial light was making clear images impossible.

More reading:

The father of modern science

Galileo Galilei convicted of heresy

How Niccolò Zucchi discovered the 'belts' around Jupiter

Also on this day:

The Feast Day of Saint Patricia of Naples

79AD: Vesuvius erupts


Home

Peppino De Filippo - comedian, actor and playwright

Talented Neapolitan who lived in shadow of his brother

Peppino de Filippo enjoyed a successful
career on stage and screen

The playwright and comic actor Peppino De Filippo was born Giuseppe De Filippo on this day in 1903 in Naples.

A highly accomplished performer on stage in serious as well as comedy roles, De Filippo also had a list of film credits numbering almost 100, of which he is best remembered for his screen partnership with the brilliant comic actor Totò.

To an extent, however, he spent his career in the shadow of his older brother, Eduardo De Filippo, who after Luigi Pirandello was regarded as the second great Italian playwright of the 20th century.

The two fell out in the 1940s for reasons that were never made clear, although it later emerged that they had many artistic differences.

They were never reconciled, and though Peppino went on to enjoy a successful career and was widely acclaimed it annoyed him that he was always seen as a minor playwright compared with his brother.

When Peppino published an autobiography in 1977, three years before he died, he called it Una famiglia difficile - A Difficult Family. In the book he described his relationship with his sister, Titina, as one of warmth and affection, but portrays Eduardo as something of a tyrant.

Peppini, second from the right, with his father,
mother, brother and sister in about 1910

The son of Eduardo Scarpetta, one of the most prominent Neapolitan playwrights of the early 20th century, and Luisa De Filippo, he was born in a house on the corner of Via Giovanni Bausan and Via Vittoria Colonna in the Chiaia district of central Naples, about a 20-minute walk from Piazza del Plebiscito and the Royal Palace.

Yet he spent the first five years of his life being cared for by a nanny in Caivano, a small town about 14km (9 miles) northeast of Naples, and returned to his family somewhat reluctantly.

He made his stage debut at the age of six in a play written by his father, learned to play the piano and worked in various theatre companies as he grew up, meeting Totò for the first time in 1920 at the Teatro Nuovo in Naples, in the Spanish Quarter.

Married in 1929 to Adela Carloni, he became a father the following year and soon afterwards joined his brother, Eduardo, and Titina in forming the Compagnia Teatro Umoristico: i De Filippo - the De Filippos’ Humorous Theatre Company.

They were very successful, touring Italy, presenting new comedies to full theatres and enthusiastic reviews.

However, in 1944, after a number of clashes with Eduardo - one story was that Eduardo disapproved of his brother’s relationship with another woman, Lidia Maresca, who later became his second wife  - Peppino left the company.

Peppino de Filippo, right, with Totò, centre, in a scene
from their 1956 movie, La Banda degli Onesti

His own plays were lighter in tone than Eduardo’s and, some critics argued, superior work, yet he never achieved the same recognition for his writing.

On the other hand, he became a highly respected actor known for his versatility. His performances in Harold Pinter’s play The Caretaker and in Molière’s The Miser attracted glowing reviews.

Nonetheless, Peppino’s career tends to be defined by the high profile he achieved in film and on television.

His films with Totò, of which there were 16, though snubbed by the critics, were hugely successful, so much so that the popularity of De Filippo in his own right meant that several movies in which the pair collaborated, such as Totò, Peppino e la malafemmina and Totò, Peppino e le fanatiche, had his name in the title as well as that of his more famous co-star.

He worked with Federico Fellini - in Boccaccio '70, for example - and with Alberto Lattuada and also invented Pappagone, a character for a TV show, who represented a servant employed by himself, a typical character in Neapolitan theatre, whose phrases and jargon became popular sayings.

He married three times in total but had only child, his son Luigi, who maintained the family tradition by becoming an actor, director and playwright, producing and performing in many works by his father and uncle.

De Filippo died in Rome in 1980 and was buried at the Campo Verano cemetery.

The Naples waterfront to the west of the city centre - Chiaia
is the area behind the trees of Villa Comunale 

Travel tip:

Chiaia, where Peppino De Filippo was born, is a neighbourhood bordering the seafront in Naples, roughly between Piazza Vittoria and Mergellina. It has become one of the most affluent districts in the city, with many of the top fashion designers having stores on the main streets. It is the home of a large public park known as the Villa Comunale, flanked by the large palazzi along the Riviera di Chiaia on one side, and the sweeping promenade of the Via Francesco Caracciolo on the other.

An artist's sketch of the Teatro Nuovo in around 1900

Travel tip:

The Teatro Nuovo, where Peppino first met Toto, is located on Via Montecalvario in the Quartieri Spagnoli - Spanish quarter - of Naples, off the Via Toledo, a few steps from Piazza del Plebiscito. The original theatre was an opera house designed by Domenico Antonio Vaccaro completed in 1724. It specialised in the opera buffa genre and saw the world premieres of hundreds of operas in its heyday, including 15 by Cimarosa and seven by Donizetti. The theatre has twice been destroyed by fire, in 1861 and again in 1935.

More reading:

How Eduardo De Filippo captured the spirit of Naples

The brilliance of Luigi Pirandello

The versatility of Alberto Lattuada

Also on this day:

1540: The death of the artist Parmigianino

1902: The birth of Mafia boss Carlo Gambino


Home

Pino Presti – bass player and composer

Talented musician could sing, play guitar, compose and conduct

Pino Presti has been one of the Italian music scene's
most important figures since the 1960s

Pino Presti, one of the most important personalities in the Italian music business, was born Giuseppe Prestipino Giarritta on this day in 1943 in Milan.

He is a bass guitar player, arranger, composer, conductor and record producer and his work ranges between the different music genres of pop, jazz, funk, latin and dance.

His father, Arturo Prestipino Giarritta, was a well-known violinist and Presti began studying piano and music theory at the age of six.

He taught himself to play the bass guitar and began playing professionally at the age of 17, having developed his own special technique using either the pick or thumb.

Presti was a pioneer of electric bass and was probably the first to play a Fender Jazz Bass in Italy.

His talent for playing the instrument led him to collaborate with the major Italian pop artists of the 1960s, including the famous singer, Mina, who is Italy's all-time top-selling female recording artist. Presti arranged and conducted 86 tracks and composed four songs for her, also sometimes backing her as a singer.

Presti enjoyed a long working relationship
with the major Italian star, Mina

Among the many other artists he worked with were Bobby Solo, Gigliola Cinquetti and Adriano Celentano. 

In 1976 he created and produced for Atlantic Records, the album, Ist Round, which was considered the first funk dance production and one of the most innovative albums of the 1970s in Italy.

In 1977 he signed a contract with RAI2 to be arranger, conductor and composer of original music for the famous TV show, Auditorio A, and he was responsible for conducting a big band of 56 notable musicians.

Presti also collaborated with some of the biggest names on the international music scene such as Shirley Bassey, Wilson Pickett, Stephane Grappelli and Maynard Ferguson.

In 2013 he produced the tribute album Shirley Bunnie-Foy, consisting of 17 tracks performed by jazz vocalist Shirley Bunnie-Foy during her 60-year career.

In 2014 he composed, co-produced and released under the pseudonym Mad of Jazz, the album Deep Colours and in 2016 he composed the music for the advertising campaign of Scavolini, an Italian kitchen and bathroom manufacturer.

Between 1967 and 1985 Presti trained in Shotokan karate under Japanese masters and obtained his 5th degree black belt in Rome in 1987.

Since 2004, he has lived in Nice in the South of France.

The Piccolo Teatro in Milan

Travel tip:

Milan, where Presti was born and lived for many years, has a wealth of theatres with a long tradition of staging different entertainment. Teatro Litta next to Palazzo Litta in Corso Magenta is believed to be the oldest theatre in the city. Teatro Dal Verme in San Giovanni sul Muro opened in 1872 and the Piccolo Teatro in Via Rivoli opened in 1947. Milan’s most famous theatre, Teatro alla Scala, in Piazza della Scala, across the road from Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II,  was first inaugurated in 1778. The theatre has a fascinating museum that displays costumes and memorabilia from its long history. The entrance is in Largo Ghiringhelli, just off Piazza Scala. It is open every day except the Italian Bank Holidays and a few days in December. Opening hours are from 9.00 to 12.30 and 1.30 to 5.30pm.

One side of the Sforza Castle in Milan

Travel tip

One of the other main sights in Milan is the impressive Sforza castle, Castello Sforzesco, built in the 15th century by Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan. After Ludovico Sforza became Duke of Milan in 1494 he commissioned Leonardo da Vinci to fresco several rooms. The castle now houses some of the city’s museums and art galleries. For more information visit www.milanocastello.it

More reading:

How Mina changed the rules for women in 1960s Italy

Adriano Celentano spans the ages of Italian pop music

Gigliola Cinquetti - Italy's first queen of Eurovision

Also on this day:

1945: The birth of 60s singing star Rita Pavone

1974: The death of pioneering psychiatrist Roberto Assagioli


Home

Luca Marenzio – composer

Madrigal writer influenced Monteverdi

Luca Marenzio is believed to have been a
singer employed by the Gonzaga family

Luca Marenzio, a prolific composer of madrigals during the late Renaissance period, died on this day in 1599 in the garden of the Villa Medici on Monte Pincio in Rome.

Marenzio wrote at least 500 madrigals, some of which are considered to be the most famous examples of the form, and he was an important influence on the composer Claudio Monteverdi.

Born at Coccaglio, a small town near Brescia in 1553, Marenzio was one of seven children belonging to a poor family, but he received some early musical training at Brescia Cathedral where he was a choirboy.

It is believed he went to Mantua with the maestro di cappella from Brescia to serve the Gonzaga family as a singer.

Marenzio was then employed as a singer in Rome by Cardinal Cristoforo Madruzzo and, after the Cardinal’s death, he served at the court of Cardinal Luigi d’Este.

He travelled to Ferrara with Luigi d’Este and took part in the wedding festivities for Vincenzo Gonzaga and Margherita Farnese.

While he was there he wrote two books of madrigals and dedicated them to Alfonso II and Lucrezia d’Este.

Marenzio's first book of madrigals was published in 1580

Marenzio went on to establish an international reputation as a talented composer of madrigals and he was also an expert lutenist. He was much admired in England and his madrigals were printed in N Yonge’s Musica Transalpina, published in 1588, a collection of music that stimulated the composition of English madrigals.

After the death of Luigi d’Este, Marenzio entered the service of Ferdinando I de’ Medici in Florence, where he formed friendships with composers Piero Strozzi and Antonio de Bicci.

On his return to Rome he entered the service of Virginio Orsini, nephew of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, and he lived in the Orsini palace. Another important patron was Cardinal Cinzio Aldobrandini, nephew of the reigning pope, Clement VIII, who assigned him an apartment in the Vatican.

Marenzio then travelled to Poland to be maestro di cappella at the court of Sigismund III Vasa in Warsaw. He wrote and directed sacred music there, which unfortunately has since been lost.

The visit to Poland affected his health and he did not live long after his return to Rome. While his brother was looking after him, he died in the garden at the Villa Medici on August 22, 1599.

Marenzio was buried in the Church of San Lorenzo in Lucina in Rome.

Vineyards near Coccaglio, which is on the edge of the
Franciacorta wine-making area, near Brescia

Travel tip:

Coccaglio, Marenzio’s birthplace, is a town in Lombardy, about 32km (20 miles) west of Brescia and 35km (22 miles) southeast of Bergamo.  The municipality is located in the southern edge of Franciacorta, the area famous for its sparkling wine of the same name, which is known as the Italian answer to Champagne, being produced using the same method as the classic French bubbly, as opposed to the faster fermentation process used in the popular Prosecco.

The Villa Medici has been the home of the
French Academy in Rome since 1803

Travel tip:

The Villa Medici, where Marenzio died, is on the Pincian Hill next to the church of Trinità dei Monti in Rome, at the head of the Spanish Steps. The villa, built in 1554 in the Mannerist style to a design by Bartolomeo Ammanati, has housed the French Academy in Rome since 1803. In ancient times the site of the Villa Medici was part of the gardens of Lucullus. Behind the Villa Medici stretches out the vast park and gardens of the Villa Borghese.

More reading:

The genius of Claudio Monteverdi

Federico II Gonzaga, the ruler of Mantua who spent his childhood as a political hostage

How Eleonora Gonzaga became Holy Roman Empress

Also on this day:

1849: History's first air raid hits Venice

1914: The death of the progressive Bishop Giacomo Radini-Tedeschi

Home

Lino Capolicchio - actor

Acclaimed for role in Vittorio de Sica classic

Lino Capolicchio's acting talents shone on the
 stage, television and the big screen

The actor and director Lino Capolicchio, who starred in Vittorio de Sica’s Oscar-winning film The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, was born on this day in 1943 in Merano, an alpine town in the Trentino-Alto Adige region of northern Italy.

Capolicchio appeared in more than 70 films and TV dramas, and dubbed the voice of Bo Hazzard in the Italian adaptation of the American action-comedy The Dukes of Hazzard.

As a director, he won awards for Pugili, a drama-documentary film set in the world of boxing based on his own storylines, but it is for The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, for which he won a David di Donatello award for best actor, that he is best remembered.

The movie is about a wealthy Jewish family in Ferrara in the 1930s, whose adult children, Micol and Alberto, enjoy blissful summers entertaining friends with tennis and parties in the garden the family’s sumptuous villa.

Capolicchio’s character, Giorgio, from another middle-class Jewish family, falls in love with Micol but she only toys with his attentions. In any event, everything changes with the outbreak of war as northern Italy’s Jewish population become targets for the Nazis and their Fascist allies.

Capolicchio with his co-star Dominique Sanda in Vittorio
de Sica's Oscar winner The Garden of the Finzi-Continis

The movie won De Sica one of his four Oscars as a director. The Garden of the Finzi-Continis and Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow both won Best Foreign Language Film, while Bicycle Thieves and Sciuscià were both awarded honorary Oscars.

Trained at the Silvio D’Amico Academy of Dramatic Arts in Rome, Capolicchio made his stage debut in 1964 at the Piccolo Teatro di Milano in a play by Carlo Goldoni under the direction of Giorgio Strehler, who also used him in some subsequent Shakespeare productions.

By 1967 his acting talents were held in such high regard that he was given a small role in Franco Zeffirelli’s movie version of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, which starred Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor.

His first major starring role came in Escalation (1968), a drama directed by Roberto Faenza, before the chance to play Giorgio in The Garden of the Finzi-Contadinis followed in 1970. The movie was such a success, winning critical acclaim as well as public popularity, that Capolicchio became famous almost overnight.

Capolicchio continued to work well into his
70s with a number of TV roles

Many more parts followed, including several films for the director Pupi Avati, including his 1976 movie La casa dalle finestre che ridono (The House with the Laughing Windows), the 1984 film Noi tre (The Three of Us), in which he plays Mozart’s father, and Ultimo minuto (Last minute) in 1988.

For a period in the late 80s, Capolicchio focussed on teaching, taking the acting chair at the Experimental Centre of Cinematography in Rome. During this period he discovered new talents such as Francesca Neri, Sabrina Ferilli and Jaja Forte.  Later, while he was holding auditions for his film Pugili, he came across a young actor of great talent who has gone on to enjoy a successful career in Pierfrancesco Favino.

Pugili, shot in 1995, was named Best Film by the international press at the Turin Film Festival.  Awarded the Vittorio de Sica Award in 2012 for best actor and director, he continued working into his 70s, with parts in TV dramas such as La piovra and the massively popular Una grande famiglia.

Updated August 2022: Lino Capolicchio sadly passed away in Rome in May, 2022, at the age of 78.

Trauttmansdorff Castle is one of the attractions of Merano

Travel tip:

Located in a basin surrounded by mountains that rise up to almost 3,350m (11,000ft), Merano is a town of around 40,000 inhabitants in Trentino-Alto Adige, known also as the South Tyrol, which is most famous for its spas. The writers Franz Kafka and Ezra Pound were both residents at one time or another. Among the attractions for visitors are the Gothic St. Nicholas' Church and, a little outside the town, the Trauttmansdorff Castle and its gardens.

The Rotonda Foschini in Ferrara

Travel tip:

Apart from the impressively well preserved Castello Estense right at the heart of the city, Ferrara - situated midway between Bologna and Venice in Emilia-Romagna - has many notable architectural gems, including many palaces from the 14th and 15th centuries.  Among them is the striking Palazzo dei Diamanti, so-called because the stone blocks of its facade are cut into the shape of diamonds. The palace holds the National Picture Gallery, which houses many works from the  masters of the 16th-century School of Ferrara, including Lorenzo Costa, Dosso Dossi, Girolamo da Carpi and Benvenuto Tisi.

More reading:

Vittorio de Sica - the maestro behind Bicycle Thieves and other classics in Italian cinema history

The Shakespeare adaptations that made Franco Zeffirelli into a household name

How La Dolce Vita actor Marcello Mastroianni became the epitome of Italian cool

Also on this day:

1862: The birth of adventure novelist Emilio Salgari

1969: The death of Giuseppe Meazza, Italian football's first superstar


Home