15 February

NEW - Carlo Maria Martini – Cardinal

Liberal leanings prevented scholar’s elevation to the papacy

Carlo Maria Martini, who was once a candidate to become Pope, was born on this day in 1927 in Orbassano in the province of Turin.  As Cardinal Martini, he was known to be tolerant in areas of sexuality and strong on ecumenism, and he was the leader of the liberal opposition to Pope John Paul II. He published more than 50 books, which sold millions of copies worldwide.  Martini was a contender for the Papacy in the 2005 conclave and, according to Vatican sources at the time, he received more votes than Joseph Ratzinger in the first round  But Ratzinger, who was considered the more conservative of the candidates, ended up with a higher number of votes in subsequent rounds and was elected Pope Benedict XVI.  Martini had entered the Jesuit order in 1944 when he was 17 and he was ordained at the age of 25, which was considered unusually early.  His doctoral theses, in theology at the Gregorian University and in scripture at the Pontifical Biblical Institute, were thought to be so brilliant that they were immediately published.  After completing his studies, Martini had a successful academic career.  Read more… 

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Totò – comic actor

50 years on, remembered still as Italy’s funniest performer

The comic actor Antonio De Curtis, universally known as Totò and still winning polls as the most popular Italian comedian of all time more than a half-century after his death, was born on this day in 1898 in Naples.  Totò had a distinguished career in theatre, wrote poetry and sang, but is best remembered for the 97 films in which he appeared between 1937 and his death in 1967, many of which were made simply as a platform for his inimitable talent.  Although he worked in dramatic roles for some of Italy’s most respected directors, it was for his comedy that he was most appreciated.  His characters were typically eccentric, his acting style sometimes almost extravagantly expressive both physically and vocally.  In his humour, he drew on his body and his face to maximum effect but also possessed an inherent sense of timing in the way he delivered his lines. Often, at the peak of his screen career with his characters so well defined, he would dispense with much of his script and simply ad lib, giving free rein to the cynicism and irreverence that came naturally.  Such was his popularity that after his death from a heart attack at the age of 69 he was given funerals both in Rome, where he lived, and in his native Naples.  Read more…

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Destruction of Monte Cassino Abbey

Historic monastery flattened in Allied bombing raid

The Abbey of Monte Cassino, established in 529 and the oldest Benedictine monastery in the world, was destroyed by Allied bombers on this day in 1944 in what is now acknowledged as one of the biggest strategic errors of the Second World War on the Allied side.  The Abbey was attacked despite an agreement signed by both sides with the Vatican that the historic building would be respected as occupying neutral territory.  But Allied commanders, who had seen their infantrymen suffer heavy casualties in trying to advance along the Liri valley, the route of the main highway between Naples and Rome, were convinced that the Germans were using the Abbey, which commands sweeping views of the valley, at least as a point from which to direct operations.  This perception was reinforced by a radio intercept, subsequently alleged to have been wrongly translated, which suggested a German battalion had been stationed in the Abbey, ignoring a 300-metre area around it that was supposed to be out of bounds to soldiers on both sides.   Knowing the outrage their action would prompt, military sources in Britain and the United States leaked details of their suspicions to the newspapers, who obligingly printed stories that seemed to justify the plan.   Read more…

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Charlie Cairoli - circus clown

Milan-born performer who became a Blackpool legend

The circus clown Charlie Cairoli, who would at his peak set a world record by appearing at the Blackpool Tower Circus in England for 40 consecutive seasons, was born in Affori, now a suburb of Milan but then a town in its own right, on this day in 1910.  Cairoli performed at the Tower for the first time in 1939 and returned every year until 1979, quitting only when his health began to fail him.  The run was not broken even by the outbreak of the Second World War, which Britain entered soon after he arrived, or his own arrest as a suspected ‘enemy alien’. He was the Tower’s most popular attraction for almost all of those years.  Cairoli, though born in Italy, was actually from a French family, albeit one of Italian descent, who christened him Hubert Jean Charles Cairoli.  His father, Jean-Marie, was also a clown; his mother, Eugenie, came from another French circus family with Italian heritage, the Rocono. Charles - known as Carletto - and his brother Louis-Philippe became part of the show as young children. Carletto made his debut at the age of seven.   At that age, he was doing little more than fetching and carrying for his parents, who were the stars.  Read more…

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Galileo Galilei – astronomer and physicist

Scholar has been judged to be the founder of modern science 

Renaissance scientist Galileo Galilei was born on this day in 1564 in Pisa.  His astronomical observations confirmed the phases of Venus, discovered the four largest satellites of Jupiter and analysed sunspots. Also among his inventions was a military compass.  Galileo was educated at a monastery near Florence and considered entering the priesthood but he enrolled instead at the University of Pisa to study medicine.  In 1581 he noticed a swinging chandelier being moved to swing in larger and smaller arcs by air currents. He experimented with two swinging pendulums and found they kept time together although he started one with a large sweep and the other with a smaller sweep. It was almost 100 years before a swinging pendulum was used to create an accurate timepiece.  He talked his father into letting him study mathematics and natural philosophy instead of medicine and by 1589 had been appointed to the chair of Mathematics at Pisa.  He moved to the University of Padua where he taught geometry, mechanics and astronomy until 1610.  Galileo met with opposition from other astronomers and was investigated by the Roman Inquisition in 1615.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Witness to Hope: The biography of Pope John Paul II 1920 - 2005, by George Weigel

A comprehensive and compelling account of the life and work of Pope John Paul II. When the Holy Father first asked George Weigel to write his biography he said: “You have the interior disposition to do this…you know my mind”. In this the only account of his life to be written with the Pope’s co-operation, a remarkable and unique person is revealed.  Drawing on unique access to Vatican papers and based on extensive interviews with the Pope himself, George Weigel draws together the two main strands of the ministry of the head on the Catholic Church. Others have written about the Pope as a political figure, but none with so much privileged information. The spiritual side, however, has largely been neglected by commentators and observers alike.  This authoritative and complete biography examines the driving forces of the Pope’s Christian faith and his dramatic reform of the papacy for the modern world. It looks at his philosophical position, prophetic outlook, his profound understanding of human freedom and his work for unity. The book explores his challenge to the sexual revolution, his concern for young people and his dialogue with science. For those of all faiths and none, Witness to Hope will make a powerful impact on every reader.

George Weigel is an American Catholic neoconservative author, political analyst, and social activist. He currently serves as a Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Weigel was the Founding President of the James Madison Foundation. He is also the author of Tranquillitas Ordinis: The Present Failure and Future Promise of American Catholic Thought on War and Peace.

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Carlo Maria Martini – Cardinal

Liberal leanings prevented scholar’s elevation to the papacy

Carlo Maria Martini, a liberal within the Catholic
Church, lost out to papal rival Joseph Ratzinger 

Carlo Maria Martini, who was once a candidate to become pope, was born on this day in 1927 in Orbassano in the province of Turin.

As Cardinal Martini, he was known to be tolerant in areas of sexuality and strong on ecumenism, and he was the leader of the liberal opposition to Pope John Paul II. He published more than 50 books, which sold millions of copies worldwide.

Martini, who expressed views in his lifetime on the need for the Catholic Church to update itself, was a contender for the papacy in the 2005 conclave and, according to Vatican sources at the time, he received more votes than Joseph Ratzinger in the first round. 

But Ratzinger, who was considered the more conservative of the candidates, ended up with a higher number of votes in subsequent rounds and was elected Pope Benedict XVI.

Martini had entered the Jesuit order in 1944 when he was 17 and he was ordained at the age of 25, which was considered unusually early.

His doctoral theses, in theology at the Gregorian University and in scripture at the Pontifical Biblical Institute, were thought to be so brilliant that they were immediately published.

After completing his studies, Martini had a successful academic career. He edited scholarly works and became active in the scientific field, publishing articles and books. He had the honour of being the only Catholic member of the ecumenical committee that prepared the new Greek edition of the New Testament. He became dean of the faculty of scripture at the Biblical Institute, was rector from 1969 to 1978, and then rector of the Gregorian University. 

In his later years, suffering from Parkinson's
disease, Martini moved to Jerusalem

In 1979, he was appointed Archbishop of Milan, which was considered unusual, as Jesuits are not normally named bishops. He was made a cardinal in 1983. 

He started the so-called ‘cathedra of non-believers’ in 1987, an idea he conceived with philosopher Massimo Cacciari. He held a series of public dialogues in Milan with agnostic, or atheist, scientists, and intellectuals about the reasons to believe in God.

He was presented with an honorary doctorate from the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1996 and an award for Social Sciences in 2000. In the same year, Martini was admitted as a member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.

In 2012, Pope Benedict XVI was considering retirement, but was being urged against it by some of his confidants. By then, Martini was himself suffering from Parkinson’s disease and he encouraged the Pope to go ahead with his decision to retire.

After his own retirement, Martini moved to Jerusalem to continue his work as a biblical scholar. 

He died in Gallarate in the province of Varese in 2012. More than 150,000 people passed before his casket in the Duomo di Milano. The Italian Government was represented by Prime Minister Mario Monti and his wife. Martini was buried in a tomb on the left side of the cathedral facing the main altar.

Piazza Umberto I in Orbassano, overlooked by
the parish church of San Giovanni Battista

Travel tip:

Orbassano, the comune (municipality) where Martini was born, is about 13km (8 miles) southwest of Turin, falling within the Piedmont capital's municipal area. It can trace its history back to the Roman conquest of Cisalpine Gaul because two imperial era tombstones were found there in the 19th century. The Indian politician, Sonia Gandi, was brought up in Orbassano, although she was born near Vicenza. While studying at Cambridge, Sonia met Rajiv Gandi, who she married in 1968. The couple settled in India and had a family but he was assassinated in his home country in 1991.  Orbassano has a pleasant central square, the Piazza Umberto I, the site of the town's two main churches, the parish church of San Giovanni Battista and the Baroque church of the Confraternita dello Spirito Santo, in which the artworks include a Pentecost by Giovanni Andrea Casella from 1647 and a Madonna and saints by Michele Antonio Milocco from 1754.

Book your stay in Orbassano with Booking.com

Liberty-style villas built by architect Carlo Moroni
and his partner, Filippo Tenconi, abound in Gallarate 

Travel tip:

Gallarate, where Martini died after he spent his final years living in a Jesuit house, is a small city in the province of Varese, about 42km (26 miles) northwest of Milan. It has a Romanesque church, San Pietro, which dates from the 11th century. In Piazza Garibaldi, where there is a statue of Giuseppe Garibaldi, there is an historic pharmacy, Dahò, where members of the Carbonari used to hide out during the 19th century.  Founded by the Gauls and later conquered by the Romans, Gallarate enjoyed prosperity under Visconti control in the 14th and 15th centuries, when the area's textile industry began to develop and grow. By the 19th and 20th centuries, it was an important industrial city, where thousands of workers were employed in Liberty-style factory buildings. The heavy industry has largely gone now, with high-tech businesses a features of the city's modern economy, but the architectural echoes remain. Piazza Garibaldi also features Casa Bellora, a Stile Liberty mansion commissioned by the local captain of industry, Carlo Bellora, who had factories in Gallarate, Somma, Albizzate, and in the Bergamo area, who hired the architect Carlo Moroni to build a house for his family.  Moroni and the engineer Filippo Tenconi combined to build numerous villas in what is known as the 'Liberty district' between Corso Sempione and the railway. 

Find accommodation in Gallarate with Booking.com

More reading:

How the first railway line in northern Italy sparked 19th century boom

Karol Wojtyla - the first non-Italian pope for 455 years

Carlo Maria Viganò, the controversial archbishop who shocked Catholic Church

Also on this day:

1564: The birth of astronomer and physicist Galileo Galilei

1898: The birth of comic actor Totò

1910: The birth of circus clown Charlie Cairoli

1944: Monte Cassino Abbey destroyed in WW2 bombing raid

(Picture credits: Main picture by Mafon1959; older Carlo Martini by RaminusFalcon; Piazza Umberto I by Simoneislanda; via Wikimedia Commons)

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14 February

The Feast of the Lovers

A day for flowers, chocolates and padlocks

Today is called La festa degli innamorati (The Feast of the Lovers) in Italy when couples celebrate their love for each other.  Italian lovers give each other flowers and chocolates and celebrate with romantic dinners just like the rest of the world.  Chocolatiers Perugina make a special version of their Baci chocolate for the occasion in a shiny, red wrapper with a red cherry in the centre rather than the traditional hazelnut.  Florence and Venice are traditionally considered to be the most romantic places in Italy, but Verona, the city of Romeo and Juliet, puts on several days of celebration for the festival each year, featuring a programme of poetry, music and events, including a Romeo and Juliet half-marathon.  The streets around Piazza Bra and Juliet’s house and balcony are illuminated along with the tallest building in the city, the Lamberti tower.  The recent fashion for locking padlocks - lucchetti dell’amore - to bridges, railings and lamp posts to demonstrate never-ending love was started in Italy after the publication of the novel Ho voglio di te (I want you) by Federico Moccia in 2006.  Read more…

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Jacopo Bassano – painter

Artist loved brilliant colours and drew his inspiration from real life

The artist who became known as Jacopo Bassano died on this day in 1592 in Bassano del Grappa in Veneto in northern Italy.  He was born in about 1510 in Bassano del Grappa.  According to some accounts, he was christened Jacopo dal Ponte, although the inscription on his statue in the town names him Giacomo da Ponte. His father, Francesco il Vecchio, was already a successful painter in Bassano and had established a workshop that produced mostly religious works.  Jacopo became an apprentice in his father’s workshop while still a young boy. He made his way to Venice when he was about 20, where he studied under Bonifazio de Pitati, who was also known as Bonifazio Veronese.  While in Venice, he met famous artists, such as Titian and il Pordenone, and his work from this period shows Titian’s influence and demonstrates his lifelong appreciation of the great artist’s work.  Jacopo Bassano’s earliest paintings also show his love of the brilliant colours used by Titian.  Bassano’s Supper at Emmaus (1538), originally commissioned for a church, uses rich luminous colours that distinguish the figures from their background.  Read more…

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Otto e mezzo - Fellini's masterpiece

Creative crisis spawned director's tour de force

The film Otto e mezzo (8½), regarded by some critics as the director Federico Fellini's greatest work, was released in Italy on this day in 1963.  It was categorised as an avant-garde comedy drama but the description hardly does it justice given its extraordinary individuality, evolving from conception to completion as an interweaving of fantasy and reality in which life not so much imitates art as becomes one and the same thing.  By the early '60s, Fellini was already a three-times Oscar winner following the success of La strada, Nights of Cabiria and La dolce vita, the last-named having also won the Palme d'Or at Cannes.  La dolce vita had signalled Fellini's move away from the neo-realism that characterised cinema in Italy in the immediate post-war years towards the surreal interpretations of life and human nature that became popular with later directors and came to define Fellini's art.  While that movie was generating millions of dollars at the box office and turning Marcello Mastroianni and Anita Ekberg into international stars, Fellini was under pressure from his producers to come up with a sequel.  Read more…

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Valentina Vezzali – fencer

Police officer is Italy’s most successful female athlete

The fencer Valentina Vezzali, whose three Olympic and six World Championship individual gold medals make her Italy’s most decorated female athlete of all time, was born on this day in 1974 in the town of Iesi in Marche.  A police officer who sat in the Italian Chamber of Deputies as a representative for Marche until 2018, Vezzali retired from competition after the 2016 World Championships.  Her haul of six Olympics golds in total – three individual and three from the team event – has not been bettered by any Italian athlete, male or female.  Two other Italian fencers from different eras – Edoardo Mangiarotti and Nedo Nadi – also finished their careers with six golds. Fencing has far and away been Italy’s most successful Olympic discipline, accruing 49 gold medals and 125 medals in total, more than twice the number for any other sport.  Alongside the German shooter Ralf Schumann, the Slovak slalom canoeist Michal Martikán and the Japanese judo player Ryoko Tani, Vezzali is one of only four athletes in the history of the Summer Olympics to have won five medals in the same individual event.  Read more…

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San Valentino and Sant’Antonino

Celebrations for two different Italian saints

Saint Valentine, a third century Roman martyr, is commemorated with a feast day on this day every year.  His name has become associated with the tradition of courtly love but all that is really known about him is that he was martyred and buried at a cemetery on the Via Flaminia in Rome on 14 February.  His feast day was first established in 496 by a Pope who revered him. It is thought he was imprisoned and tortured and then hastily buried, but that his disciples later retrieved his body.  During the Middle Ages it was believed that birds paired in mid-February and this is probably why Saint Valentine’s Day became associated with romance.  But while lovers all over the world raise a glass to Saint Valentine on this day, residents and visitors in Sorrento celebrate the festival of Sant’Antonino, the city’s patron saint.  Sant’Antonino Abate died on 14 February, 626. He is credited with saving the life of a child swallowed by a whale and also protecting Sorrento against plague and invasion.  Each year on the anniversary of his death, a silver statue of Sant’Antonino is carried in a procession through the streets of Sorrento.  Read more...

Book of the Day: Celebrating Italy: The Tastes & Traditions of Italy as Revealed Through Its Feasts, Festivals & Sumptuous Foods, by Carol Field

Italians are passionate about their food and love to celebrate together. At annual village festivals the food is cooked in mammoth proportions, the cobblestone streets become jammed with costumed processions and happy crowds sit and enjoy a communal meal that is a ritual of connection and neighborly love. In Celebrating Italy, Carol Field takes the reader to these exuberant civic feasts and highlights their very special and ancient recipes. The result is one of the most remarkable cookbooks ever written, for in exploring festivals, Field has opened a bright new window on Italian culture and its sumptuous food.  Recipes include the victory dinner of Risotto Fratacchione - red onions and sausages eaten after Siena's famous Palio; the Sorbir d'Agnoli - stuffed pasta in wine-spiked broth that the Mantuans eat on Christmas Day; and Pane di Cena's sweet milk bread rolls, made to last all through Easter Week in Sicily.

The late Carol Field wrote about Italy and Italian food for 45 years, publishing seven top-selling books on Italian life and cuisine. She contributed to numerous magazines and made regular television appearances on cooking shows in her native United States.

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13 February

Benvenuto Cellini – sculptor and goldsmith

Creator of the famous Perseus bronze had a dark history

The colourful life of the Renaissance artist Benvenuto Cellini ended on this day in 1571 with his death in Florence at the age of 70.  A contemporary of Michelangelo, the Mannerist Cellini was most famous for his bronze sculpture of Perseus with the Head of Medusa, which still stands where it was erected in 1554 in the Loggia dei Lanzi of the Piazza della Signoria in Florence, and for the table sculpture in gold he created as a salieri - salt cellar - for Francis I of France.  The Cellini Salt Cellar, as it is generally known, measuring 26cm (10ins) by 33.5cm (13.2ins), is now kept at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, with an insurance value of $60 million.  His works apart, Cellini was also known for an eventful personal life, in which his violent behaviour frequently landed him in trouble. He killed at least two people while working in Rome as a young man and claimed also to have shot dead Charles III, Duke of Bourbon, during the 1527 Siege of Rome by mutinous soldiers of the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V.  Cellini was also imprisoned for alleged embezzlement of the gems from the tiara of Pope Clement VII.  Read more…

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Pierluigi Collina - football referee

Italian arbiter seen as the best in game's history

Pierluigi Collina, arguably the best and certainly the most recognisable football referee in the history of the game, was born on this day in 1960 in Bologna.  Collina, who was in charge of the 1999 Champions League final and the 2002 World Cup final, was named FIFA's referee of the year for six consecutive seasons.  He was renowned for his athleticism, his knowledge of the laws of the game and for applying them with even-handedness and respect for the players, while using his distinctive appearance to reinforce his authority on the field.  Standing 1.88m (6ft 2ins) tall and with piercing blue eyes, Collina is also completely hairless as a result of suffering a severe form of alopecia in his early 20s, giving him an intimidating presence on the field.  Growing up in Bologna, the son of a civil servant and a schoolteacher, Collina shared the dream of many Italian boys in that he wanted to become a professional footballer.  In reality, he was not quite good enough, although he was a decent central defender who played amateur football to a good standard.   When he was 17 and at college, he was persuaded to take a referee's course and displayed a natural aptitude.  Read more…

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Antonia Pozzi - poet

Tragic writer whose work was published only after her death

The poet Antonia Pozzi, who came to be regarded as one of the greatest Italian poets of the 20th century, was born on this day in 1912 in Milan. Born into a wealthy family, she enjoyed a privileged lifestyle but seemingly a difficult relationship with her parents. She kept diaries and began to write poems as a teenager, although none came to light until she died in tragic circumstances at the age of just 26. Afterwards, her notebooks were found to contain more than 300 poems, which revealed her to be one of the most original voices in 20th century Italian literature.  Most have subsequently been published, to great critical acclaim.  The daughter of Roberto Pozzi, a prominent Milan lawyer, and his aristocratic wife, Countess Lina Cavagna Sangiuliani, Antonia’s literary talent may have been inherited from her great-grandfather on her mother’s side, the 19th century poet and writer, Tommaso Grossi.  As a teenager, she had multiple interests, studying German, English and French and travelling both within Italy and further afield, to France, Austria, Germany, England, Greece and North Africa, always indulging her love of photography.  Read more…

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Isabella d’Este – Marchioness of Mantua

‘The First Lady of the world’

Isabella d’Este, who was a leading cultural and political figure during the Renaissance, died on this day in 1539 in Mantua.  She had been a patron of the arts, a leader of fashion, a politically astute ruler and a diplomat. Such was her influence that she was once described as ‘the First Lady of the world’.  Her life is documented by her correspondence, which is still archived in Mantua. She received about 28,000 letters and wrote about 12,000. More than 2000 of her letters have survived.  Isabella grew up in a cultured family in the city of Ferrara. Her father was Ercole I d’Este, Duke of Ferrara, and her mother was Eleanor of Naples.  She received a classical education and had opportunities to meet famous scholars and artists. She was reputed to have frequently discussed the classics and affairs of state with ambassadors who came to the court.  When Isabella was just six years old she was betrothed to Francesco, the heir to the Marquess of Mantua.  At the age of 15 she married him by proxy. He had succeeded his father and become Francesco II and she became his Marchioness.   In 1493 Isabella gave birth to a daughter, Eleonora, the first of her eight children.  Read more…

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Fire at Teatro di San Carlo

Royal theatre reopens quickly after blaze 

Fire broke out during a dress rehearsal for a ballet at Teatro di San Carlo in Naples on this day in 1816.  The flames spread quickly, destroying a large part of the building in less than an hour.  The external walls were the only things left standing, but on the orders of Ferdinand IV, King of Naples, the prestigious theatre was rebuilt at once.  It was reconstructed following designs drawn up by architect Antonio Niccolini for a horseshoe-shaped auditorium with 1,444 seats. A stunning fresco was painted in the centre of the ceiling above the auditorium depicting a classical subject, Apollo presenting to Minerva the greatest poets of the world.  The rebuilding work took just ten months to complete and the theatre reopened to the public in January 1817.  Teatro di San Carlo had opened for the first time in 1737, way ahead of Teatro alla Scala in Milan and La Fenice in Venice.  Built in Via San Carlo close to Piazza del Plebiscito, the main square in Naples, Teatro di San Carlo had quickly become one of the most important opera houses in Europe, known for its excellent productions.  The original theatre was designed by Giovanni Antonio Medrano for the Bourbon King of Naples, Charles I, and took only eight months to build.  Read more…

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Book of the Day:  The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini (Penguin Classics), translated by George Anthony Bull

Benvenuto Cellini was a celebrated Renaissance sculptor and goldsmith - a passionate craftsman who was admired and resented by the most powerful political and artistic personalities in sixteenth-century Florence, Rome and Paris. He was also a murderer and a braggart, a shameless adventurer who at different times experienced both papal persecution and imprisonment, and the adulation of the royal court. Inn-keepers and prostitutes, kings and cardinals, artists and soldiers rub shoulders in the pages of his notorious autobiography: a vivid portrait of the manners and morals of both the rulers of the day and of their subjects. Written with supreme powers of invective and an irrepressible sense of humour, this is an unrivalled glimpse into the palaces and prisons of the Italy of Michelangelo and the Medici.

George Bull OBE was an English translator, author and journalist. After reading History at Brasenose College, Oxford, he worked for the Financial Times among other publications. He wrote several books on Italian history and translated six volumes for the Penguin Classics series. In addition to Cellini's Autobiography, he translated The Book of the Courtier by Castiglione, Lives of the Artists by Vasari (two volumes), The Prince by Machiavelli, and Pietro Aretino's Selected Letters.

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12 February

NEW - Vittorio Emanuele - Prince of Naples

Heir to the last King of Italy spent his life in exile

Prince Vittorio Emanuele of Savoy, the only son of Umberto II, the last King of Italy, was born on this day in 1937 in Naples.  He had to leave Italy when he was nine years old following the constitutional referendum held in Italy after World War II. The referendum affirmed the abolition of the monarchy and the creation of the Italian republic in 1946.  Umberto II had been King of Italy for just over a month and was afterwards nicknamed the May King. He had been de facto head of state since 1944, after his father, King Victor Emmanuel III, had transferred most of his powers to him.  Umberto lived for 37 years in exile in Cascais on the Portuguese Riviera. He never set foot in his native Italy again as he, and all his male heirs, were banned from Italian soil.  His only son, Vittorio Emanuele, spent most of his life exiled from Italy and living in Switzerland. He married a Swiss heiress and world ranked water skier, Marina Doria, in 1971.  They had one son, Prince Emanuele Filiberto of Savoy, Prince of Venice, who was born in 1972.  Vittorio Emanuele also used the title Duke of Savoy and claimed to be head of the House of Savoy, although this claim was disputed by supporters of his third cousin, Prince Amedeo, Duke of Aosta, and his son, Almone.  Read more…

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Michelangelo Cerquozzi – painter

Battle scenes brought fame and riches to Baroque artist

Michelangelo Cerquozzi, the Baroque painter, was born on this day in 1602 in Rome.  He was to become famous for his paintings of battles, earning himself the nickname of Michelangelo delle Battaglie - Michelangelo of the Battles.  Cerquozzi was born into a well-off family as his father was a successful leather merchant. He started his artistic training at the age of 12 in the studio of Giuseppe Cesari, a history painter, with whom the young Caravaggio trained when he first arrived in Rome.  Not much is known about Cerquozzi’s early work, although he is thought to have been influenced by the Flemish and Dutch artists active in Rome at the time. As well as battles, Cerquozzi painted small, religious and mythological works and some still life scenes.  Cerquozzi joined the Accademia di San Luca in 1634 and, although he did not follow their strict rules, he started gradually gaining recognition for his work.  He secured commissions from prominent Roman patrons, including representatives of the Barberini and Colonna families.  His only public commission in Rome was for a lunette depicting the Miracle of Saint Francis of Paolo in the cloister of the Church of Sant’Andrea delle Fratte, which has sadly been lost.  Read more…

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Franco Zeffirelli – film director

Shakespeare adaptations made director a household name

The film, opera and television director Franco Zeffirelli was born on this day in Florence in 1923.  He was best known for his adaptations of Shakespeare plays for the big screen, notably The Taming of the Shrew (1967), with Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, Romeo and Juliet (1968) and Hamlet (1990) with Mel Gibson.   Boldly, he cast two teenagers in the title roles of Romeo and Juliet and filmed the tragedy against the backdrop of 15th century buildings in Serravalle in the Veneto region. His film became the standard adaptation of the play and has been shown to thousands of students over the years.  His later films included Jane Eyre (1996) and Tea with Mussolini (1999), while he directed several adaptations of operas for the cinema, including I Pagliacci (1981), Cavalleria rusticana (1982), Otello (1986), and La bohème (2008).  Because he was the product of an affair between two people already married, Zeffirelli's name was an invention, and a misspelled one. His mother intended him to be registered as Zeffiretti - the Italian for 'little breezes' - in a reference to a line in Mozart's opera, Idomeneo. However, it was misspelled in the register.  Read more…

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Lazzaro Spallanzani – priest and scientist

18th century biologist who pioneered artificial insemination 

Lazzaro Spallanzani, the first scientist to interpret the process of digestion and the first to carry out a successful artificial insemination, died on this day in 1799 in Pavia.  Spallanzani made important contributions to the experimental study of bodily functions and animal reproduction. His investigations into the development of microscopic life in nutrient culture solutions paved the way for the later research of Louis Pasteur.  Born in Scandiano in the province of Reggio Emilia, the son of a wealthy lawyer, Spallanzani attended a Jesuit college and was ordained as a priest but then went to Bologna to study law.  Influenced by the eminent Laura Bassi, a professor of physics at the University, Spallanzani became interested in science.  In 1754 Spallanzani was appointed professor of logic, metaphysics and Greek at a college in Reggio and he later became a professor of physics at the University of Modena.  Spallanzani experimented in transplantation, successfully transplanting the head of one snail on to the body of another.  After a series of experiments on digestion, he obtained evidence that digestive juices contain special chemicals that are suited to particular foods.  Read more…

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Claudia Mori - actress and singer

Film star who married pop icon Adriano Celentano

The actress, singer and later television producer Claudia Mori, married for more than half a century to Italy’s all-time biggest-selling recording artist, Adriano Celentano, was born on this day in 1944 in Rome.  She and Celentano met in 1963 on the set of Uno strano tipo (A Strange Type), a comedy film in which they were both starring. The two were married the following year at the Church of San Francesco in Grosseto in Tuscany, having kept their intentions secret to avoid publicity.  Mori was only 20 when she and Celentano - six years her senior - were married but she had already made several films.  Born Claudia Moroni, she made her film debut in Raffaello Matarazzo’s romantic comedy Cerasella at the age of just 15 in 1959, featuring as the title character opposite Mario Girotti, the actor who would later change his name to Terence Hill and become famous as the parish priest Don Matteo in the long-running television series of the same name.  The following year she had a supporting part as a laundry worker colleague of Alain Delon in Luchino Visconti’s Rocco e i suoi fratelli (Rocco and His Brothers).  Read more…

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Book of the Day: The Force of Destiny: A History of Italy Since 1796, by Christopher Duggan

The greatness of Italy's culture and way of life have had a powerful attraction for many generations of visitors. This has created an overwhelming sense that Italy is a fundamentally benign and easy going country. The Force of Destiny lays waste to this idea. While sharing everyone's enthusiasm for Italy as a place, the author strongly distinguishes this from its political role over the past two centuries, which has been both vicious and ruinous for Europe as a whole. Christopher Duggan skillfully interweaves Italy's art, music, literature, and architecture with its economic and social realities and political development to tell this extraordinary European story. The first English-language book to cover the full scope of modern Italy, from its origins more than two hundred years ago to the present, The Force of Destiny is a brilliant and comprehensive study - and a frightening example of how easily nation-building and nationalism can slip toward authoritarianism and war.

Christopher Duggan, who died in 2015, was a British historian and academic. He specialised in the political, social and cultural history of modern Italy. He began his career as a research fellow at Wolfson College, Oxford and then at All Souls College, Oxford. In 1987, he moved to the University of Reading, where he was Professor of Modern Italian History from 2002.

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Vittorio Emanuele - Prince of Naples

Heir to the last King of Italy spent his life in exile

Vittorio Emanuele, Prince of Naples, the only
son of Italy's last monarch, died at the age of 86

Prince Vittorio Emanuele of Savoy, the only son of Umberto II, the last King of Italy, was born on this day in 1937 in Naples.

He had to leave Italy when he was nine years old following the constitutional referendum held in Italy after World War II. The referendum affirmed the abolition of the monarchy and the creation of the Italian republic in 1946.

Umberto II had been King of Italy for just over a month and was afterwards nicknamed the May King. He had been de facto head of state since 1944, after his father, King Victor Emmanuel III, had transferred most of his powers to him.

Umberto lived for 37 years in exile in Cascais on the Portuguese Riviera. He never set foot in his native Italy again as he, and all his male heirs, were banned from Italian soil.

His only son, Vittorio Emanuele, spent most of his life exiled from Italy and living in Switzerland. He married a Swiss heiress and world-ranked water skier, Marina Doria, in 1971.  They had one son, Prince Emanuele Filiberto of Savoy, Prince of Venice, who was born in 1972.

Umberto II was King of Italy for just
over a month before being exiled

Vittorio Emanuele also used the title Duke of Savoy and claimed to be head of the House of Savoy, although this claim was disputed by supporters of his third cousin, Prince Amedeo, Duke of Aosta, and his son, Almone. 

During his exile from Italy, Vittorio Emanuele was tried for murder in France after an incident on his yacht while it was in French waters. He claimed he had fired his gun at a burglar, but the shot accidentally killed someone on another yacht. He was cleared of unlawful killing but convicted of a firearms offence. 

Vittorio Emanuele was also once arrested on charges of criminal association, racketeering, conspiracy, corruption, and exploitation of prostitution, but was acquitted on all charges after a trial started in Potenza.

He was finally able to return to Italy in 2002 after the law barring members of the royal family from entering Italy was repealed. Along with his wife and son, he had a 20-minute audience with Pope John-Paul II at the Vatican.

Vittorio Emanuele died in Geneva on 3 February 2024 at the age of 86. His funeral was held on 10 February at Turin Cathedral and was attended by representatives of other European royal families, including Queen Sofia of Spain and Prince Albert of Monaco.

His ashes were interred in the royal crypt at the Basilica of Superga, the traditional burial place of the House of Savoy.

His heir is Emanuele Filiberto, Prince of Venice, who announced last year that he intends to renounce his claim to the throne of Italy in favour of his eldest daughter, Princess Vittoria of Savoy.

Palazzo Madama, once home of the Turin senate,
is one of the palaces at the heart of 'royal' Turin

Travel tip:

Turin, the capital city of the region of Piedmont, has some fine architecture, which illustrates its rich history as the home of the Savoy Kings of Italy. Piazza Castello, with the royal palace, royal library, and Palazzo Madama, which used to house the Italian senate, are at the heart of ‘royal’ Turin.  Turin’s Duomo - the Cattedrale di San Giovanni Battista - was built between 1491 and 1498 in Piazza San Giovanni, on the site of an old Roman theatre. Some members of the House of Savoy are buried in the Duomo, which is most famous as the home of the Turin Shroud - believed by many to be the actual burial shroud of Christ - which is kept in the Chapel of the Holy Shroud, added in 1668. 

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Filippo Juvarra's magnificent Basilica di Superga
looks down on Turin from the top of a hill 

Travel tip:

The Basilica of Superga, where Vittorio Emanuele’s ashes are interred, was designed by Filippo Juvarra, the Baroque architect from Sicily who built or contributed to many churches in Turin. Construction at Superga began in 1717 and the basilica, commissioned by Victor Amadeus II of Savoy, the future king of Sardinia, was consecrated in 1731, fulfilling a pledge Victor Amadeus had made to mark his victory over the French in the Battle of Turin, during the War of the Spanish Succession. The basilica’s elevated position on top of Superga hill, with a colossal dome rising to 75m (246 feet), means that it often sits serenely in sunlight while mist shrouds the city below. It can be reached by a steep railway line, the journey taking about 20 minutes.  Superga, sadly, has a modern association with tragedy for the people of Turin after a plane carrying virtually the entire Torino football team, who were champions of Italy at the time, crashed into a wall at the back of the basilica in May 1949, killing all 31 people on board.

More reading:

Valentino Mazzola, an Italian great who perished at Superga

The 16th century Duke who made Turin the capital of Savoy

Filippo Juvarra, the Baroque designer who influenced the look of 'royal' Turin

Also on this day: 

1602: The birth of painter Michelangelo Cerquozzi

1799: The death of scientist Lazzaro Spallanzani

1923: The birth of film and opera director Franco Zeffirelli

1944: The birth of actress and singer Claudia Mori

(Picture credits: Palazzo Madama by Lurens; Basilica di Superga by M Klueber; via Wikimedia Commons)

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11 February

NEW - Giuseppe De Santis - film director

Former Resistance fighter famous for neorealist classic Bitter Rice

The writer and film director Giuseppe De Santis, who is best remembered for the 1949 neorealist film Bitter Rice - screened as Riso Amaro for Italian audiences - was born on this day in 1917 in Fondi, a small city in Lazio about 130km (81 miles) south of Rome.  De Santis is sometimes described as an idealist of the neorealism genre, which flourished in the years immediately after World War Two, yet it can also be argued that he moved away from the documentary style that characterised some of neorealism’s early output towards films with more traditional storylines.  Bitter Rice, for example, while highlighting the harsh working conditions in the rice fields around Vercelli in the Po Valley and the exploitation of labourers by wealthy landowners, is also a tale of plotting, jealousy and treachery among thieves.  Nonetheless, De Santis, a staunch opponent of Mussolini and Fascism who fought against the Germans with the Italian Resistance, inevitably underpinned his work with a strong social message. The son of a surveyor, De Santis wrote stories from an early age, drawing on the day-to-day lives of the people around him in Fondi and the surrounding countryside.  Read more…

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Carlo Carrà - Futurist artist

Painter hailed for capturing violence at anarchist's funeral

The painter Carlo Carrà, a leading figure in the Futurist movement that gained popularity in Italy in the early part of the 20th century, was born on this day in 1881 in Quargnento, a village about 11km (7 miles) from Alessandria in Piedmont.  Futurism was an avant-garde artistic, social and political movement that was launched by the poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti in 1909 and attracted many painters and sculptors, designers and architects, writers, film makers and composers who wished to embrace modernity and free Italy from what they perceived as a stifling obsession with the past.  The Futurists admired the speed and technological advancement of cars and aeroplanes and the new industrial cities, all of which they saw as demonstrating the triumph of humanity over nature through invention. They were also fervent nationalists and encouraged the youth of Italy to rise up in violent revolution against the establishment.  The movement was associated with anarchism. Indeed, Carrà counted himself as an anarchist in his youth and his best known work emerged from that period, when he attended the funeral of a fellow anarchist, Angelo Galli, who was killed by police during a general strike in Milan in 1906.  Read more…

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Lateran Treaty

How the Vatican became an independent state inside Italy 

An agreement between the Kingdom of Italy and the Holy See, recognising the Vatican as an independent state within Italy, was signed on this day in 1929.  The Lateran Treaty settled what had been known as ‘The Roman Question’, a dispute regarding the power of the Popes as rulers of civil territory within a united Italy.  The treaty is named after the Lateran Palace where the agreement was signed by prime minister Benito Mussolini on behalf of King Victor Emmanuel III and Cardinal Pietro Gasparri on behalf of Pope Pius XI.  The Italian parliament ratified the treaty on June 7, 1929. Although Italy was then under a Fascist government, the succeeding democratic governments have all upheld the treaty.  The Vatican was officially recognised as an independent state, with the Pope as an independent sovereign ruling within Vatican City. The state covers approximately 40 hectares (100 acres) of land.  The papacy recognised the state of Italy with Rome as its capital, giving it a special character as ‘the centre of the catholic world and a place of pilgrimage’.  The Prime Minister at the time, Benito Mussolini, agreed to give the church financial support in return for public support from the Pope.  Read more...

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Gianluca Ginoble – singer

Versatile baritone helps make Il Volo’s magical sound

Gianluca Ginoble, a member of the hugely successful and award winning Italian pop and opera trio Il Volo, was born on this day in 1995 in Roseto degli Abruzzi, in the Abruzzo region.  He is the youngest of the trio and the only baritone. The other two singers, Piero Barone and Ignazio Boschetto, are both tenors.  Gianluca’s family lives in Montepagano, a small hilltop town overlooking Roseto degli Abruzzi. He is the oldest son of Ercole Ginoble and Eleonora Di Vittorio and has a younger brother, Ernesto.  Gianluca started to sing when he was just three years old with his grandfather, Ernesto, in the Bar Centrale, which Ernesto owns, in the main square of the town.  While still young, Gianluca took part in music festivals and competitions in his area, winning some and being distinguished in them all because of his beautiful deep voice.  In 2009, he won the talent show Ti Lascio Una Canzone on Rai Uno, singing Il mare calmo della sera, which had been Andrea Bocelli's winning song at the Sanremo Music Festival of 1994.  He was then just 14 years old.  Piero Barone and Ignazio Boschetto also took part in the show and in one episode the trio performed together for the first time, singing the Neapolitan classic, O sole mio.   Read more…

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Louis Visconti - architect

Roman who made his mark on Paris

The architect Louis Visconti, who designed a number of public buildings and squares as well as numerous private residences in Paris, was born on this day in 1791 in Rome.   Notably, Visconti was the architect chosen to design the tomb to house the remains of Napoleon Bonaparte after King Louis Philippe I obtained permission from Britain in 1840 to return them from Saint Helena, the remote island in the South Atlantic where the former emperor had died in exile in 1921.  Born Louis Tullius Joachim Visconti, he came from a family of archaeologists. His grandfather, Giambattista Antonio Visconti was the founder of the Vatican Museums and his father, Ennio Quirino Visconti, was an archaeologist and art historian.  Ennio had been a consul of the short-lived Roman Republic, proclaimed in February 1798 after Louis Alexandre Berthier, a general of Napoleon, had invaded Rome, but was forced to leave with the restoration of papal control.   He and his family moved to Paris and were naturalised as French citizens, with Ennio becoming a curator of antiquities and paintings at the Musée du Louvre.   In 1808, Louis enrolled at Paris's École des Beaux-Arts.   Read more… 

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Carlo Sartori – footballer

Italian was first foreigner to play for Manchester United

Carlo Domenico Sartori, the first footballer from outside Great Britain or Ireland to play for Manchester United, was born on this day in 1948 in the mountain village of Caderzone Terme in Trentino.  The red-haired attacking midfielder made his United debut on October 9, 1968, appearing as substitute in a 2-2 draw against Tottenham Hotspur at the London club’s White Hart Lane ground.  On the field were seven members of the United team that had won the European Cup for the first time the previous May, including George Best and Bobby Charlton, as well as his boyhood idol, Denis Law, who had missed the final against Benfica through injury.  Sartori, who made his European Cup debut against the Belgian side Anderlecht the following month, went on to make 56 appearances in four seasons as a senior United player before returning to Italy to join Bologna.  Although they dominate the Premier League today, players from abroad were a rarity in British football in Sartori’s era and United did not have another in their ranks until they signed the Yugoslav defender Nikola Jovanovic from Red Star Belgrade in 1980.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: The History of Italian Cinema: A Guide To Italian Film From Its Origins To The Twenty-First Century, by Gian Piero Brunetta

Published in English for the first time, The History of Italian Cinema is the most comprehensive guide to Italian film ever assembled, tracing the complete history of filmmaking in Italy, from its origins in the silent era through its golden age in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, and its subsequent decline to its resurgence today. Gian Piero Brunetta covers more than 1,500 films, discussing renowned masters including Roberto Rossellini and Federico Fellini, as well as directors lesser known outside Italy such as Dino Risi and Ettore Scola. He examines overlooked Italian genre films such as horror movies, comedies, and Westerns, and he also devotes attention to neglected periods such as the Fascist era. Brunetta illuminates the epic scope of Italian filmmaking, showing it to be a powerful cultural force in Italy and leaving no doubt about its enduring influence abroad. Encompassing the social, political, and technical aspects of the craft, he recreates the world of Italian cinema, giving readers rare insights into the actors, cinematographers, film critics, and producers that have made Italian cinema unique. 

Gian Piero Brunetta, an Italian film critic, historian and academic. is the foremost scholar of Italian cinema. Professor of cinema history and criticism at the University of Padua, he is the author of more than 20 books and has written about cinema for the Italian daily newspaper La Repubblica as well as numerous Italian and foreign literary and film magazines.

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