Filippo Mazzei – physician

Liberal thinker was praised by John F Kennedy

Filippo Mazzei contributed to the wording
of America's Declaration of Independence

Globe-trotting doctor Filippo Mazzei, who was a close friend of the American president, Thomas Jefferson, died on this day in 1816 in Pisa in Tuscany.

During the American Revolutionary War, Mazzei had acted as an agent for Jefferson, purchasing arms for Virginia.

President John F Kennedy paid tribute to Mazzei’s contribution to the Declaration of Independence in his book, A Nation of Immigrants.

Mazzei was born in 1730 in Poggio a Caiano in Tuscany. He studied medicine in Florence and then practiced in both Italy and Turkey. He moved to London in 1755 and set himself up in business as an importer, while also working as an Italian teacher.

In London he met both Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, who would become two of America's Founding Fathers, and came up with the idea of importing Tuscan products, such as wine and olive trees, to the New World.

In 1773 Mazzei boarded a ship from Livorno to Virginia, taking with him plants, seeds, silkworms and farmers from Lucca.

He visited Jefferson at his estate in Virginia and was given a large piece of land to start an experimental plantation.

Thomas Jefferson and Filippo Mazzei
shared similar political values

Mazzei and Jefferson started what was to become the first commercial vineyard in Virginia. They were both interested in politics and discovered they shared similar liberal values, becoming good friends.

After Mazzei returned to Italy in 1779 he became a secret agent for the state of Virginia, buying and shipping arms to them.

He also travelled through Europe promoting Republican ideals, writing a political history of the American Revolution, which he published in Paris in 1788.

While in the Polish Lithuanian commonwealth, Mazzei became attached as a Privy Councillor to the court of King Stanislaus II. The King then sent him to be Poland’s representative in Paris.  After Poland was partitioned between Russia and Prussia in 1795, Mazzei was given a pension by Russia.

While in France, Mazzei became active in the politics of the French Revolution under the Directorate, but when Napoleon overthrew that Government, Mazzei returned to Pisa, where he died in 1816. He was buried in the Pisa Suburbano cemetery.

It has been claimed that Jefferson had a falling out with George Washington over a letter he had sent to Mazzei in Italy that criticised Washington’s administration. The letter was eventually published overseas and in the US.

A plaque marks the house in Via Giordano Bruno in Pisa
where Filippo Mazzei died on March 19, 1816

But John F Kennedy acknowledges Mazzei’s contribution to the Declaration of Independence in his book: A Nation of Immigrants. He states: ‘The great doctrine ‘All men are created equal’ and incorporated into the declaration of Independence by Thomas Jefferson was paraphrased from the writing of Philip Mazzei, an Italian-born patriot and pamphleteer, who was a close friend of Jefferson.’

Kennedy said in his book that scholars try to discredit Mazzei as the creator of this statement but he insists that it was written in Italian in Mazzei’s own hand several years before the Declaration was written.

Kennedy writes: ‘No one man can take complete credit for the ideals of American democracy.’

In 1980 a 40-cent US airmail stamp was issued to commemorate the 250th anniversary of Mazzei’s birth. The World War II Liberty Ship SS Filippo Mazzei was also named in his honour.

Mazzei lived his final years in a house in Via Giordano Bruno in Pisa, which is identified to visitors by a plaque on the wall. He was said to have been a regular visitor to the Caffè dell’Ussero, a coffee house frequented by intellectuals that occupies the ground floor of the Palazzo Agostini, a striking four-storey Gothic building by the river on Lungarno Antonio Pacinotti.

The Villa Medici at Poggio a Caiano, where visitors can
view apartments used by the Medici family

Travel tip:

Poggio a Caiano, where Filippo Mazzei was born, is a town and comune in the province of Prato in Tuscany. It lies nine kilometres south of the provincial capital of Prato. One of the most famous sights in the area is the Villa Medici, designed by Giuliano da Sangallo in around 1480. Today it is a public building housing a museum and the historic apartments where members of the Medici family used to stay.

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Pisa's Torre Pendente - the leaning tower -
is a monument recognised all over the world

Travel tip:

Pisa, where Filippo Mazzei died and was buried, is famous for its leaning tower, Torre Pendente, which is one of the four buildings that make up the cathedral complex in the Field of Miracles (Campo dei Miracoli). The Duomo was the first to be constructed and then the Baptistery was added. While work on the tower was being carried out, a cemetery (Campo Santo) was added. During the summer the tower is open to visitors from 08.30 to 22.00. Tickets to climb the tower are limited and booking in advance is recommended if you want to avoid queuing. For more details, visit www.towerofpisa.org/tickets.

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18 March

The Five Days of Milan

Citizens rebel to drive out ruling Austrians

The Five Days of Milan, one of the most significant episodes of the Risorgimento, began on this day in 1848 as the citizens of Milan rebelled against Austrian rule.  More than 400 Milanese citizens were killed and a further 600 wounded but after five days of street battles the Austrian commander, Marshal Josef Radetzky, withdrew his 13,000 troops from the city.  The 'Cinque Giornate' uprising sparked the First Italian War of Independence between the Kingdom of Sardinia and the Austrian Empire.  Much of northern Italy was under Austrian rule in the early part of the 19th century and they maintained a harsh regime. Elsewhere, governments were introducing social reform, especially in Rome but also in Sicily, Salerno and Naples after riots against the Bourbon King Ferdinand II.  Ferdinand, ruler of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, and Charles Albert (Carlo Alberto) of Savoy, in the Kingdom of Sardinia, adopted a new constitution, limiting the power of the monarchy, and Pope Pius IX in the Papal States followed suit a little later.  The response of the Austrians was to seek a still tighter grip on their territories in Lombardy-Venetia.  Read more…

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Bobby Solo - pop singer

Sixties star found fame after Sanremo disqualification

Bobby Solo, who was twice winner of Italy's prestigious Sanremo Festival yet had his biggest hit with a song that was disqualified, was born Roberto Satti on this day in 1945 in Rome.  The singer and songwriter won the contest in 1965 and again in 1969 but it was the controversy over his 1964 entry that thrust him into the spotlight and sent him to the top of the Italian singles charts with the first record to sell more than one million copies in Italy. To emphasise that the competition was to select the best song, rather than the best artist, each entry was sung by two artists, one a native Italian, the other an international guest star. In 1964, Solo was paired with the American singer Frankie Laine to showcase Una lacrima sul viso (A Tear on Your Face).  Laine performed the song in English but Solo was stricken with a throat problem. Rather than withdraw, he sang the song with the help of a backing track, only to be told afterwards that this was against the rules. The song was disqualified but attracted such attention that it became a huge hit, topping the Italian singles chart for eight weeks. Sales in Italy and other countries eventually topped two million.  Read more…

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Mount Vesuvius – the 1944 eruption

The last time the volcano was seen to blow its top

Mount Vesuvius, the huge volcano looming over the bay of Naples, last erupted on this day in 1944.  Vesuvius is the only volcano on mainland Europe to have erupted during the last 100 years and is regarded as a constant worry because of its history of explosive eruptions and the large number of people living close by.  It is most famous for its eruption in AD 79, which buried the Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum and is believed to have killed thousands of people.  An eyewitness account of the eruption, in which tons of stones, ash and fumes were ejected from the cone, has been left behind for posterity by Pliny the Younger in his letters to the historian, Tacitus.  There were at least three larger eruptions of Vesuvius before AD 79 and there have been many since. In 1631 a major eruption buried villages under lava flows and killed about 300 people and the volcano then continued to erupt every few years.  The eruption which started on 18 March 1944 and went on for several days destroyed three villages nearby and about 80 planes belonging to the US Army Air Forces, which were based at an airfield close to Pompeii.   Read more…


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17 March

Giovanni Trapattoni - football coach

His seven Serie A titles is unequalled achievement

Giovanni Trapattoni, the former Juventus and Internazionale coach who is one of only six coaches to have won the principal league titles of four different European countries, was born on this day in 1939 in Cusano Milanino, a suburb on the northern perimeter of Milan.  The most successful club coach in the history of Serie A, he won seven titles, six with Juventus and one with Inter.  His nearest challenger in terms of most Italian domestic championships is Massimiliano Allegri, who won six - five with Juventus, one with AC Milan.  In addition, Trapattoni has also won the German Bundesliga with Bayern Munich, the Portuguese Primeira Liga with Benfica and the Austrian Bundesliga with Red Bull Salzburg, with whom he secured his 10th league title all told in 2007. Former Chelsea and Manchester United boss Jose Mourinho is among the other three managers to have won titles in four countries.  He has been successful in Portugal, England, Italy and Spain. Trapattoni's compatriot Carlo Ancelotti is the only manager to win titles in all of the so-called top five European leagues, in Italy (AC Milan), England (Chelsea), France (PSG), Germany (Bayern Munich), and Spain (Real Madrid).  Read more…

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Gabriele Ferzetti - actor

Starred in classic Italian films as well as Bond movie

The actor Gabriele Ferzetti, best known to international audiences for his role in the 1969 Bond movie On Her Majesty’s Secret Service but in Italy for the Michelangelo Antonioni classic L’Avventura (1960), was born on this day in 1925 in Rome.  Ferzetti, who cut a naturally elegant and debonair appearance, was the go-to actor for handsome, romantic leads in the early part of his career and although he was ultimately eclipsed to some extent by Marcello Mastroianni, he seemed equally content with prominent supporting roles. Rarely idle, he made more than 160 films and appeared in countless TV dramas and was still working at 85 years old.  His intense performance as Antonioni’s wealthy yet unfulfilled playboy opposite Lea Massari and Monica Vitti in L’Avventura was the role that identified him most as an actor of considerable talent. Ferzetti had played a similar character in another Antonioni classic Le amiche (1955).  Outside Italian cinema, he was memorable as the unscrupulous Morton, the railroad magnate who hobbled around on crutches in Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West (1968).  Read more…

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Kingdom of Italy proclaimed

First king of Italy calls himself Victor Emmanuel II

The newly-unified Kingdom of Italy was officially proclaimed on this day in 1861 in Turin.  The first Italian parliament to meet in the city confirmed Victor Emmanuel as the first King of the new country.  It was the monarch's own choice to call himself Victor Emmanuel II, rather than Victor Emmanuel I. This immediately provoked criticism from some factions, who took it as implying that Italy had always been ruled by the House of Savoy.  Victor Emmanuel I, with whom Victor Emmanuel II had ancestral links, had been King of Sardinia - ruled by the Dukes of Savoy - from 1802 until his death in 1824.  Victor Emmanuel II had become King of Sardinia in 1849 after his father, Charles Albert, abdicated. His father had succeeded a distant cousin, Charles Felix, to become King of Sardinia in 1831.  The Kingdom of Sardinia is considered to be the legal predecessor to the Kingdom of Italy.  As King of Sardinia, Victor Emmanuel II had appointed Count Camillo Benso of Cavour as Prime Minister of Sardinia-Piedmont, who had then masterminded a clever campaign to put him on the throne of a united Italy.  Victor Emmanuel II had become the symbol of the Risorgimento, the Italian unification movement in the 19th century.   Read more…

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Innocenzo Manzetti - inventor

Made prototype telephone 33 years ahead of Bell

The inventor Innocenzo Manzetti, credited by some scientific historians as having been the creator of a forerunner of the telephone many years ahead of his compatriot Antonio Meucci and the Scottish-American Alexander Graham Bell, was born on this day in 1826 in Aosta, in northwest Italy.  Manzetti's extraordinary catalogue of inventions included a steam-powered car, a hydraulic water pump, a pendulum watch that would keep going for a whole year and a robot that could play the flute.  But he was a man whose creative talents were not allied to business sense.  Like Meucci, a Florentine emigrant to New York who demonstrated a telephone-like device in 1860 - 16 years before Bell was granted the patent - Manzetti did not patent his device and therefore missed out on the fortune that came the way of Bell.  Research has found that Manzetti may have had the idea for a "vocal telegraph" as early as 1843, as a result of his success with his flute-playing automaton, which he constructed as a life-size model of a man sitting on a chair, inside which were concealed a system of levers, rods and compressed air tubes that enabled his lips and fingers to move on the flute.  Read more…


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16 March

NEW - Enrico Tamberlik – tenor

Imposing king of the high C sharp

Opera singer Enrico Tamberlik, who is remembered for the quality of his remarkable high notes, was born on this day in 1820 in Rome.  At the height of his career, Tamberlik, whose name is also sometimes spelt Tamberlick, sang regularly at the Royal Opera House in London and in St Petersburg, Paris and America.  The singer is believed to have been of Romanian descent but was born in Italy and did all his vocal training in Naples, Bologna and Milan.  At the age of 17 Tamberlik made his debut in a concert and then made his first appearance on the operatic stage as Gennaro in Lucrezia Borgia by Gaetano Donizetti at the Teatro Apollo in Rome.  In 1841 he appeared under the name Enrico Danieli at the Teatro Fondo in Naples as Tybalt in I Capuleti e I Montecchi by Vincenzo Bellini. A year later he made his debut at Teatro San Carlo in Naples under the name Enrico Tamberlik, which he used from then onwards.  Tamberlik made his London debut as Masaniello in Louis Auber’s La Muette de Portici at Covent Garden in 1850.  In St Petersburg in 1862 in the premiere performance of Giuseppe Verdi’s La forza del destino, he appeared as Don Alvaro, a role that had been written specially for him.  Read more…

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Aldo Moro - Italy's tragic former prime minister

Politician kidnapped and murdered by Red Brigades

Italy and the wider world were deeply shocked on this day in 1978 when the former Italian prime minister, Aldo Moro, was kidnapped on the streets of Rome in a violent ambush that claimed the lives of his five bodyguards.  The attack took place on Via Mario Fani, a few minutes from Signor Moro's home in the Monte Mario area, at shortly after 9am during the morning rush hour.  Moro, a 61-year-old Christian Democrat politician who had formed a total of five Italian governments, between 1963 and 1968 and again from 1974-76, was being driven to the Palazzo Montecitorio in central Rome for a session of the Chamber of Deputies.  As the traffic forced Moro's car to pause outside a café, one of four small Fiat saloon cars used by the kidnappers reversed into a space in front of Moro's larger Fiat, in which the front seats were occupied by two carabinieri officers with Moro sitting behind them.  Another of the kidnappers' Fiats pulled in behind the Alfa Romeo immediately following Moro's, which contained three more bodyguards.  At that moment, four gunmen emerged from bushes close to the roadside and began firing automatic weapons.  Read more…

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Emilio Lunghi - athlete

Italy's first Olympic medallist 

Emilio Lunghi, a middle-distance runner who was the first to win an Olympic medal in the colours of Italy, was born on this day in 1886 in Genoa.  Competing in the 800 metres at the 1908 Olympic Games in London, Lunghi took the silver medal behind the American Mel Sheppard. In a fast-paced final, Lunghi's time was 1 minute 54.2 seconds, which was 1.8 seconds faster than the previous Olympic record buts still 1.4 seconds behind Sheppard.  It was the same Olympics at which Lunghi's compatriot Dorando Pietri was controversially disqualified after coming home first in the marathon, when race officials took pity on him after he collapsed from exhaustion after entering the stadium and helped him across the line.  A versatile athlete who raced successfully at distances from 400m up to 3,000m, Lunghi was national champion nine times in six events and is considered the first great star of Italian track and field.  An all-round sportsman, Lunghi was a talented gymnast, swimmer and boxer, but after winning a 3,000m-race in his home city he was encouraged to develop his potential as a runner by joining Sport Pedestre Genova, at the time the most important athletics club in Liguria.  Read more…

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Bernardo Bertolucci - film director

Caused outrage with Last Tango in Paris

The controversial filmmaker Bernardo Bertolucci was born on this day in 1940 in Parma.  Bertolucci won an Oscar for best director as The Last Emperor picked up an impressive nine Academy Awards in 1988 but tends to be remembered more for the furore that surrounded his 1972 movie Last Tango in Paris.  Last Tango in Paris, starring Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider, caused outrage for its portrayal of sexual violence and emotional turmoil and was banned in Italy.  Although the storm died down over time, it blew up again in 2007 when Schneider, who was only 19 when the film was shot, claimed she felt violated after one particularly graphic scene because she had not been told everything that would happen.  Schneider died from cancer in 2011.  The controversy has overshadowed what has otherwise been an outstanding career, Bertolucci's movies placing him in the company of Federico Fellini, Michelangelo Antonioni, Luchino Visconti and Franco Zeffirelli among the greatest Italian directors of all time.  As a young man, Bertolucci wanted to become a poet, inspired by his father, Attilio, who was a poet as well as an art historian.  Read more…


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Enrico Tamberlik – tenor

Imposing king of the high C sharp

At the height of his career, Enrico Tamberlik was
Italy's most admired tenore robusto

Opera singer Enrico Tamberlik, who is remembered for the quality of his remarkable high notes, was born on this day in 1820 in Rome.

At the height of his career, Tamberlik, whose name is also sometimes spelt Tamberlick, sang regularly at the Royal Opera House in London and in St Petersburg, Paris and America.

The singer is believed to have been of Romanian descent but was born in Italy and did all his vocal training in Naples, Bologna and Milan.

At the age of 17 Tamberlik made his debut in a concert and then made his first appearance on the operatic stage as Gennaro in Lucrezia Borgia by Gaetano Donizetti at the Teatro Apollo in Rome.

In 1841 he appeared under the name Enrico Danieli at the Teatro Fondo in Naples as Tybalt in I Capuleti e I Montecchi by Vincenzo Bellini.

A year later he made his debut at Teatro San Carlo in Naples under the name Enrico Tamberlik, which he used from then onwards.

Tamberlik made his London debut as Masaniello in Louis Auber’s La Muette de Portici at Covent Garden in 1850.

Enrico Tamberlik sang at the leading opera houses
of the world in a career spanning 45 years

In St Petersburg in 1862 in the premiere performance of Giuseppe Verdi’s La forza del destino, he appeared as Don Alvaro, a role that had been written specially for him.

He went on to sing in Moscow, Paris, Buenos Aires, Lisbon, Madrid and Barcelona with his extensive repertoire, which included all the leading tenor roles of the time.

Tamberlik was especially praised for the resonance and power of his high C sharp.  He succeeded Gaetano Fraschini as Italy’s leading ‘tenore robusto’.

He was said to have had an imposing appearance that helped him become an exciting interpreter of dramatic roles.

His last singing engagement in London was at Her Majesty’s Theatre in 1877. After touring Spain in 1881 he retired from the operatic stage. Tamberlik died in Paris three days before his 69th birthday.

The tenor Francesco Tamagno, whose career overlapped with that of Tamberlik, was regarded as his foremost successor. Tamagno made recordings in Italy in 1903 for the Gramophone and Typewriter Company and critics believe an echo of Tamberlik’s resonant voice and style has been preserved in them.

The Teatro Apollo in Rome as it would have looked
when Tamberlik was enjoying peak popularity

Travel tip:

The Teatro Apollo in Rome, where Tamberlik made his first appearance in an opera, was created from a medieval tower, the Torre dell’Annona, which had once acted as a prison. It became the Teatro Tordinona in the 17th century and then the Teatro Apollo in the late 18th century. The biggest theatre in Rome, it hosted the premieres of two Verdi operas but was demolished in 1888 when the embankments of the Tiber were built. A white marble fountain remains as a memorial marking the sport where the theatre once stood.

The Teatro di San Carlo in Naples, just around the corner
from Piazza Plebiscito, remains an important opera house

Travel tip:

Teatro di San Carlo in Naples, where Tamberlik first appeared under his own name, is the oldest opera house in the world, having opened in 1737, way ahead of La Scala in Milan and La Fenice in Venice. Built in Via San Carlo close to Piazza Plebiscito, the main square in Naples, Teatro di San Carlo quickly became one of the most important opera houses in Europe, renowned for its excellent productions. The theatre was designed by Giovanni Antonio Medrano for the Bourbon King of Naples, Charles I, and took just eight months to build. Both Donizetti and Rossini served as artistic directors at San Carlo and the world premieres of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor and Rossini’s Mosè in Egitto were performed there.


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15 March

Salvator Rosa – artist

Exciting Baroque painter inspired others

Salvator Rosa, a fiery and flamboyant character who was a poet and actor as well as an artist, died on this day in 1673 in Rome.  One of the least conventional artists of 17th century Italy, he was adopted as a hero by painters of the Romantic movement in the 18th and 19th centuries.  He mainly painted landscapes, but also depicted scenes of witchcraft, revealing his interest in the less conventional ideas of his age. These scenes were also sometimes the background for his etchings and the satires he wrote.  Rosa was born in Arenella on the outskirts of Naples. His father, a land surveyor, wanted him to become a lawyer or priest and entered him in the convent of the Somaschi Fathers.  Rosa was interested in art and secretly learnt about painting with his uncle and his brother-in-law, Francesco Fracanzano, who was a pupil of Jose de Ribera. Rosa later became an apprentice to Aniello Falcone, working with him on his battle scenes.  His own paintings featured landscapes overgrown with vegetation and beach scenes with caves, peopled with shepherds, seamen, soldiers and bandits.  Read more…

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Giuseppe Mezzofanti - hyperpolyglot

Roman Catholic Cardinal could speak 38 languages

The death occurred in Rome on this day in 1849 of Cardinal Giuseppe Caspar Mezzofanti, a prodigiously talented academic renowned for his command of multiple foreign languages.  Defined as a hyperpolyglot - someone who is fluent in six languages or more - Mezzofanti is said to have full command of at least 38.  The majority were European, Mediterranean or Middle Eastern languages - mainstream and regional - but he was also said to be fluent in Chinese languages, Russian, plus Hindi and Gujarati.  His fame was such that he became something of an international celebrity, although he never actually left Italy, living the early part of his life in his home city of Bologna, before moving to Rome.  Visiting dignitaries from all over the world would ask to be introduced to him, ready to be awestruck as he slipped effortlessly into their native tongue.  There is an abundance of stories illustrating his extraordinary gift.  As a boy, working in the workshop in Bologna of his father, Francis, a carpenter, he is said to have overheard from a neighbouring building a priest giving lessons in Latin and Greek and later recalled every word, despite never having seen a Latin or Greek book.  Read more…

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Cesare Beccaria - jurist and criminologist

Enlightened philosopher seen as father of criminal justice

The jurist and philosopher Cesare Beccaria, who is regarded as one of the greatest thinkers of the so-called Age of Enlightenment in the 18th century, and whose writings had a profound influence on justice systems all over the world, was born on this day in 1738 in Milan.  As the author of a treatise On Crimes and Punishments (1764), which was a ground-breaking work in the field of criminal law and the approach to punishing offenders, Beccaria is considered by many academics to be the father of criminal justice.  The treatise, which Beccaria compiled when he was only 26 years old, condemned the death penalty on the grounds that the state does not possess the right to take lives and declared torture to be a barbaric practice with no place in a civilised, measured society.  It outlined five principles for an effective system of criminal justice: that punishment should have had a preventive deterrent function as opposed to being retributive; that punishment should be proportionate to the crime committed; that the probability of punishment should be seen as a more effective deterrent than its severity.  Read more…

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The murder of Julius Caesar

He came, saw, conquered... and was assassinated

Statesman and soldier Gaius Julius Caesar was murdered on this day in 44 BC in Rome.  His death made the Ides of March, the day on the Roman calendar devised by Caesar that corresponds to 15 March, a turning point in Roman history, one of the events that marked the transition from the Roman Republic to the Roman Empire.  Caesar had made his mark as a soldier in Asia Minor and Spain and established himself as a politician, making useful allies.  But his invasion of Gaul took several years and was the most costly and destructive campaign ever undertaken by a Roman commander. Afterwards, Caesar crossed the Rubicon - a river that formed a northern border of Italy - with a legion of troops, entered Rome illegally, and established himself as a dictator dressed in royal robes.  On the Ides of March, Caesar was stabbed to death by a group of rebellious senators led by Marcus Junius Brutus.  His adopted heir, Octavian, later known as Augustus, rose to power afterwards and the Roman Empire began.  Far from sealing his reputation as a vainglorious tyrant, his assassins, Brutus, Cassius and the others, succeeded only in clinching Caesar’s historical immortality.  Read more…


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14 March

Victor Emmanuel II

The first king to rule over a united Italy

King Victor Emmanuel II was born Vittorio Emanuele Maria Alberto Eugenio Ferdinando Tommaso on this day in 1820 in Turin.  He was proclaimed the first king of a united Italy in 1861 by the country’s new parliament and in 1870, after the French withdrew, he entered the city of Rome and set up the new Italian capital there. The Italian people called him Padre della Patria - Father of the Fatherland.  Born Prince Victor Emmanuel of Savoy, he was the eldest son of Charles Albert, Prince of Carignano, and Maria Theresa of Austria. His father succeeded a distant cousin as King of Sardinia- Piedmont in 1831.  In 1842 Victor Emmanuel married his cousin Adelaide of Austria and was styled as the Duke of Savoy before becoming King of Sardinia-Piedmont after his father abdicated the throne following a humiliating military defeat by the Austrians at the Battle of Novara.  In 1852 Victor Emmanuel appointed Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour as Prime Minister of Piedmont-Sardinia, who turned out to be a shrewd politician and masterminded his campaign to rule over a united Italy.   Read more…

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Giangiacomo Feltrinelli – publisher

Accidental death of an aristocratic activist

Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, a leading European publisher and one of Italy’s richest men, died on this day in 1972 after being blown up while trying to ignite a terrorist bomb on an electricity pylon at Segrate near Milan.  It was a bizarre end to the life and career of a man who had helped revolutionise Italian book publishing. He became famous for his decision to translate and publish Boris Pasternak’s novel Doctor Zhivago after the manuscript was smuggled out of the Soviet Union, where it had been banned on the grounds of being anti-Soviet.  This was an event that shook the Soviet empire and led to Pasternak winning the Nobel Prize for Literature.  Feltrinelli also started the first chain of book shops in Italy, which still bear his name.   He was born in 1926 into a wealthy, monarchist family. At the instigation of his mother, Feltrinelli was created Marquess of Gargnano when he was 12 by Benito Mussolini.  During the Second World War, the family left their home, Villa Feltrinelli, north of Salò on Lake Garda to make way for Mussolini to live there. But in the later stages of the war, Feltrinelli enrolled in the Italian Communist Party and fought against the Germans and the remnants of Mussolini’s regime.  From 1949 onwards, Feltrinelli collected documents for the Giangiacomo Feltrinelli Library in Milan.  Read more…

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Giovanni Schiaparelli - astronomer

Discoveries sparked belief there was life on Mars

The astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli, whose observations in the late 19th century gave rise to decades of popular speculation about possible life on Mars, was born on this day in 1835 in Savigliano, about 60km (37 miles) south of Turin.  Schiaparelli worked for more than 40 years at the Brera Observatory in Milan, most of that time as its director.  It was in 1877 that he made the observations that were to cause so much excitement, a year notable for a particularly favourable 'opposition' of Mars, when Mars, Earth and the Sun all line up so that Mars and the Sun are on directly opposite sides of Earth, making the surface of Mars easier to see.  Oppositions occur every two years or so but because the orbit of Mars is more elliptical than Earth's there are points at which it is much closer to the Sun than at others.  An opposition that coincides with one of these points is much rarer, probably taking place only once in a lifetime, if that.  Schiaparelli was deeply fascinated with Mars and knew that this opposition gave him the opportunity of his lifetime to make a detailed survey of the red planet and made every effort to ensure his vision and his senses were as sharp as they could be when he put his eye to the telescope.  Read more…


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