Sant’Eustachio – Roman saint

Christian convert martyred by Hadrian celebrated across world

 Tommaso Cagnola's Vision of Saint Eustace in the
Oratorio di Santa Maria in Garbagna Novarese, Piedmont

The feast day of Saint Eustace, Sant’Eustachio as he is known in Italian, is celebrated on this day every year in Rome, as well as throughout Italy, and elsewhere in the world.

Eustace is revered as a Christian martyr because he was killed by the Emperor Hadrian in AD 118 for refusing to sacrifice to pagan gods. He was thrown to the lions initially but the animals are said to have refused to eat him, so Hadrian ordered another unpleasant death for him and his family, using a brazen bull, a lifesize model of a bull cast in bronze, which was a particularly cruel torture and execution device of the day. 

After Eustace and his family’s deaths, their bodies were secretly recovered and buried by Christians in Rome.

A church and minor basilica in Italy’s capital city is named after Eustace in Rione Sant’Eustachio, an area between Piazza Navona and the Pantheon.

Sant’Eustachio is also honoured on this day in Tocco da Casauria in the province of Pescara in the Abruzzo region, where the 12th century church is dedicated to him, and on an island in the Caribbean belonging to the Netherlands, which is named Sint’Eustatius after the saint. There are also two churches in India dedicated to him and a church bearing his name in County Kildare in Ireland.

Eustace was a pagan Roman general who converted to Christianity after he had a vision of the cross while out hunting. As a result, he lost all his wealth, was separated from his wife and sons and went into exile in Egypt.

But he was called back to lead the Roman army by a subsequent emperor, Trajan, and he was happily reunited with his family and restored to high social standing.

Under the regime of Hadrian, who came afterwards, however, Eustace and his family were martyred for refusing to adhere to paganism.

The Chiesa di Sant'Eustachio in Tocco da Casauria,
in the shadow of the Maiella massif in Abruzzo

Many versions of the legend of Saint Eustace were written in verse and prose in medieval times in France and in Italy. In one French version, Eustace became a Christian after he is awestruck by a deer when he was out hunting. When the deer turned to look at him, Eustace saw the deer had a cross between its antlers

In Italy, a church dedicated to Saint Eustace in Rome is mentioned in a letter by Pope Gregory II who was pontiff from 731 to 741.

An early depiction of Eustace in Europe was carved on a Romanesque capital at an abbey in Burgundy, and Philip II of France rededicated a church to Saint Eustace in the 12th century.

Because Eustace is reputed to have converted to Christianity while out stag hunting, there are depictions of him kneeling before a stag in a wall painting in Canterbury Cathedral, and in stained glass windows at the Cathedral of Chartres in France.

Eustace became known as a patron saint of hunters and firefighters, and also of anyone facing adversity. He is the patron saint of hunters in Bavaria and Austria, and one of the patron saints of Madrid in Spain.

His feast day of September 20 is remembered by both the Roman Catholic church and the Eastern Orthodox Church. It was removed from the Roman calendar in 1969 because of the lack of definite information about the saint, but it is still observed around the world by Roman Catholics who follow the pre-1970 Roman Calendar.

The Basilica Sant'Eustachio
dates back to the 8th century

Travel tip:

The Basilica of Saint Eustace, (Basilica Sant’Eustachio) is in Via di Sant’Eustachio to the west of the Pantheon. It had been founded by the end of the eighth century as it was mentioned in documents as being a centre for helping the poor and the sick during the reign of Pope Gregory II, which ended in 731. The church was restored and had a new campanile added by Celestine III, who was Pope between 1191 and 1198, and who ordered the relics of Eustace and his family to be placed in the church. The church was almost completely rebuilt in Roman baroque style during the 17th and 18th centuries, with only the campanile from the old structure remaining. On top of the pediment on the façade of the church there is a deer head with a cross between the antlers, which is a reference to one of the legends about how Saint Eustace became a Christian. 

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Caravaggio's painting, The Calling of Saint Matthew,
can be seen in the church of San Luigi dei Francesi

Travel tip:

Sant’Eustachio gives his name to the eighth Rione of Rome, whose coat of arms also depicts the head of a stag with a cross between the antlers. The Rione Sant'Eustachio lies between the Pantheon and Piazza Navona and extends to the Largo di Torre Argentina archaeological site. As well as the Basilica of Sant’Eustachio, the Church of San Luigi dei Francesi is within the Rione, its Contarelli Chapel containing a cycle of paintings by the Baroque master Caravaggio, painted in 1599-1600, about the life of Saint Matthew. This includes the three world-renowned canvases of The Calling of Saint Matthew (on the left wall), The Inspiration of Saint Matthew (above the altar), and The Martyrdom of Saint Matthew (on the right wall). The district is also home to one of Rome’s most famous and popular coffee houses, Sant' Eustachio Il Caffè, in Piazza Sant’Eustachio, opened in 1938 and said to be the oldest coffee roastery in central Rome. It occupies the premises that formerly housed another café, established in 1800 under the name Caffè e Latte. 

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More reading:

The Caravaggio altarpiece on display in a church in Siracusa, Sicily

Nero’s mass slaughter of Christians in Rome

Trajan, the military expansionist with progressive social policies

Also on this day:

1378: Election of Robert of Geneva’s election as Pope Clement VII sparks split in Catholic Church

1870: Capture of Rome completes unification

1934: The birth of Oscar-winning actress Sophia Loren

1975: The birth of actress and director Asia Argento

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19 September

Giuseppe Saragat – fifth President of Italy

Socialist politician opposed Fascism and Communism

Giuseppe Saragat, who was President of the Italian Republic from 1964 to 1971, was born on this day in 1898 in Turin.  As a Socialist, he was exiled from Italy by the Fascists in 1926.  When he returned to Italy in 1943 to join the partisans, he was arrested and imprisoned by the Nazi forces occupying Rome, but managed to escape and resume clandestine activity. Saragat was born in Turin to Sardinian parents and graduated from the University of Turin in economics and commerce. He joined the Socialist party in 1922.  During his years in exile he did various jobs in Austria and France.  After returning to Italy, he was minister without portfolio in the first post-liberation cabinet of Ivanoe Bonomi in 1944.  He was sent as ambassador to Paris and was then elected president of the Constitutional Assembly that drafted postwar Italy’s new constitution.  Read more…

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Italo Calvino – writer

One of 20th century Italy's most important authors

Novelist and journalist Italo Calvino died on this day in 1985 in Siena in Tuscany.  Calvino was regarded as one of the most important Italian writers of fiction of the 20th century.  His best known works are the Our Ancestors trilogy, written in the 1950s, the Cosmicomics collection of short stories, published in 1965, and the novels, Invisible Cities, published in 1972 and If On A Winter’s Night A Traveller, published in 1979.  Both of Calvino’s parents were Italian, but he was born in Santiago de Las Vegas, a suburb of Havana in Cuba, in 1923, where his father, Mario, an agronomist and botanist, was conducting scientific experiments. Calvino’s mother, Eva, was also a botanist and a university professor. It is believed she gave Calvino the first name of Italo to remind him of his heritage.  Calvino and his parents left Cuba for Italy in 1925 and settled permanently in Sanremo. Read more… 

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Mariangela Melato - actress

Versatile star excelled on stage and screen

Mariangela Melato, who won acclaim for her work with the brilliant director Lina Wertmüller, played a camp villain in the comic book send-up Flash Gordon, and later excelled as a classical stage actress, was born on this day in 1941 in Milan.  She enjoyed her peak years on screen in the 1970s, most notably in Wertmuller’s The Seduction of Mimi, Love and Anarchy and Swept Away.  From the mid-80s onwards, Melato was based at the Teatro Stabile in Genoa, where she played many of the great classical parts in works by authors such as Pirandello, Euripides and Shakespeare.  She made her mark in television, notably winning praise for her portrayal of Mrs Danvers in an Italian adaptation of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca in 2008.  Melato’s father emigrated to Italy from Nazi Germany, changed his name from Honing to Melato and became a traffic policeman in Trieste. Read more…

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Umberto Bossi - politician

Fiery leader of separatist Lega Nord

Controversial politician Umberto Bossi was born on this day in 1941 in the town of Cassano Magnago in Lombardy.  Until 2012, Bossi was leader of Lega Nord (Northern League), a political party whose goal was to achieve autonomy for northern Italy and establish a new independent state, to be called Padania.  With his distinctive, gravelly voice and penchant for fiery, sometimes provocative rhetoric, Bossi won a place in the Senate in 1987 representing his original party, Lega Lombarda. He was dismissed as an eccentric by some in the political mainstream but under his charismatic leadership Lega Nord became a force almost overnight.  Launched as Alleanza Nord in 1989, bringing together a number of regional parties including Bossi’s own Lega Lombarda, it was renamed Lega Nord in 1991 and fought the 1992 general election with stunning results.  Read more…

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Festival of San Gennaro

Worldwide celebrations for patron saint of Naples

Local worshippers, civic dignitaries and visitors meet together in the Duomo in Naples every year on this day to remember the martyrdom of the patron saint of the city, San Gennaro.  Each year a service is held to enable the congregation to witness the dried blood of the saint, which is kept in a glass phial, miraculously turn to liquid.  The practice of gathering blood to be kept as a relic was common at the time of the decapitation of San Gennaro in 305.  The ritual of praying for the miracle of liquefaction of the blood on the anniversary of his death dates back to the 13th century.  Gennaro is said to have been the Bishop of Benevento and was martyred during the Great Persecution led by the Roman Emperor Diocletian for trying to protect other Christians.  His decapitation is believed to have taken place in Pozzuoli but his remains were transferred to the Duomo in Naples in the 15th century.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: War and Social Change in Modern Europe: The Great Transformation Revisited, by Sandra Halperin

Sandra Halperin traces the persistence of traditional class structures during the development of industrial capitalism in Europe, and the way in which these structures shaped states and state behaviour and generated conflict. She documents European conflicts between 1789 and 1914, including small and medium scale conflicts often ignored by researchers and links these conflicts to structures characteristic of industrial capitalist development in Europe before 1945. War and Social Change in Modern Europe revisits the historical terrain of Karl Polanyi's The Great Transformation (1944), however, it argues that Polanyi's analysis is, in important ways, inaccurate and misleading. Ultimately, the book shows how and why the conflicts both culminated in the world wars and brought about a 'great transformation' in Europe. Its account of this period challenges not only Polanyi's analysis, but a variety of influential perspectives on nationalism, development, conflict, international systems change, and globalisation.

Sandra Halperin is Professor of International Relations and co-director of the Centre for Global and Transnational Politics in the Department of Politics and International Relations at Royal Holloway, University of London.

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18 September

Rossano Brazzi - Hollywood star

Actor quit as a lawyer for career on the big screen

The movie actor Rossano Brazzi, whose credits include The Barefoot Contessa, Three Coins in the Fountain and South Pacific, was born on this day in 1916 in Bologna.  Brazzi gave up a promising career as a lawyer in order to act and went on to appear in more than 200 films, more often than not cast as a handsome heartbreaker or romantic aristocrat.  He was at his peak in the 50s and 60s but continued to accept parts until the late 80s. His last major role was as Father DeCarlo in Omen III: The Final Conflict in 1981.  Brazzi's family moved to Florence when he was aged four. His father Adelmo, a shoemaker, opened a leather factory in which Rossano, his brother, Oscar, and his sister, Franca, would all eventually work.  Adelmo had ambitions for Rossano, however, helping him win a place at the University of Florence, where he obtained a law degree. Read more…

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Alberto Franchetti - opera composer

Caruso sang his arias on first commercial record in 1902

The opera composer Alberto Franchetti, some of whose works were performed by the great tenor Enrico Caruso for his first commercial recording, was born on this day in 1860 in Turin.  Caruso had been taken with Franchetti’s opera, Germania, when he sang the male lead role in the opera’s premiere at Teatro alla Scala in Milan in March 1902.  A month later, Caruso famously made his first recording on a phonograph in a Milan hotel room and chose a number of arias from Germania and critics noted that he sang the aria Ah vieni qui… No, non chiuder gli occhi vaghi with a particular sweetness of voice.  A friend and rival of Giacomo Puccini, Franchetti had a style said to have been influenced by the German composers Wagner and Meyerbeer. He was sometimes described as the "Meyerbeer of modern Italy."  Read more…

Domitian – Roman emperor

Efficient tyrant rebuilt parts of Rome

The Emperor Domitian, who kept the Roman upper classes under control by subjecting them to a 15-year reign of terror, died on this day in 96 AD in Rome.  He has been described as ‘a ruthless, but efficient, autocrat,’ who clashed with the Senate and drastically reduced their powers. But he strengthened the Roman economy and started a massive building programme to restore the city of Rome, which had been damaged by successive wars and fires.  The last member of the Flavian dynasty, Domitian was the son of Vespasian, and the brother of Titus, who were his two predecessors as Emperor.  He played only a minor role during their reigns, but after the death of his brother, Titus, who had no children, Domitian was declared Emperor by the Praetorian Guard.  Domitian revalued the Roman coinage and strengthened border defences. Read more…

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Francesca Caccini – singer and composer

Court musician composed oldest surviving opera by a woman

Prolific composer and talented singer Francesca Caccini was born on this day in 1587 in Florence.  Sometimes referred to by the nickname La Cecchina, she composed what is widely considered to be the oldest surviving opera by a woman composer, La Liberazione di Ruggiero, which was adapted from the epic poem, Orlando Furioso by Ludovico Ariosto.  Caccini was the daughter of the composer and musician, Giulio Caccini, and she received her early musical training from him. Like her father, she regularly sang at the Medici court.  She was part of an ensemble of singers referred to as le donne di Giulio Romano, which included her sister, Settimia, and other unnamed pupils.  After her sister married and moved to Mantua, the ensemble broke up, but Caccini continued to serve the court as a teacher, singer and composer. Read more…

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The Italian Cinema Book,  edited by Peter Bondanella

The Italian Cinema Book is an essential guide to the most important historical, aesthetic and cultural aspects of Italian cinema, from 1895 to the present day. With contributions from 39 leading international scholars, the book is structured around six chronologically organised sections: The Silent Era 1895-1922); The birth of the Talkies and the Fascist Era (1922-45); Postwar cinematic culture (1945-59); The golden age of Italian cinema (1960-80); An age of crisis, transition and consolidation (1891-present); and  New directions in critical approaches to Italian cinema. Acutely aware of the contemporary 'rethinking' of Italian cinema history, Peter Bondanella has brought together a diverse range of essays which represent the cutting edge of Italian film theory and criticism. This provocative collection will provide the film student, scholar or enthusiast with a comprehensive understanding of the major developments in what might be called 20th-century Italy's greatest and most original art form. 

Peter Bondanella was the author of a number of groundbreaking books such as: Hollywood Italians, The Cinema of Federico Fellini, and The Films of Roberto Rossellini. In 2009, he was elected to the European Academy of Sciences and the Arts for his contributions to the history of the Italian cinema and his translations or editions of Italian literary classics

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17 September

Ranuccio II Farnese – Duke of Parma

Feuding with the Popes led to the destruction of a city

Ranuccio II Farnese, who angered Innocent X so much that the Pope had part of his territory razed to the ground, was born on this day in 1630 in Parma.  Ranuccio II was the eldest son of Odoardo Farnese, the fifth sovereign duke of Parma, and his wife, Margherita de’ Medici.  Odoardo died while Ranuccio was still a minor and, although he succeeded him as Duke of Parma, he had to rule for the first two years of his reign under the regency of both his uncle, Francesco Maria Farnese, and his mother.  The House of Farnese had been founded by Ranuccio’s paternal ancestor, Alessandro Farnese, who became Pope Paul III. The Farnese family had been ruling Parma and Piacenza ever since Paul III gave it to his illegitimate son, Pier Luigi Farnese. He also made Pier Luigi the Duke of Castro.  Read more… 

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Nives Meroi - mountaineer

One of history’s greatest female climbers 

The climber Nives Meroi, widely regarded as one of history’s finest female mountaineers, was born on this day in 1961 in Bonate Sotto, a small town in the province of Bergamo, about 40km (25 miles) northeast of Milan.  One half of a renowned husband-and-wife climbing team with Romano Benet, Meroi is one of only three women to have reached the peak of all 14 of the so-called eight-thousanders, the only mountains in the world that tower about 8,000m, topped by Everest (8,848m), which she conquered in 2007, and K2 (8,611), which she had scaled in 2006.  Meroi completed the full set of 14 when she reached the summit of Annapurna (8,091m) in the Himalayas in 2017.  She and Benet, born in Italy but who has Slovenian nationality, are the first married couple to have climbed all 14 together.  The two first met more than 40 years ago in Tarvisio in Friuli-Venezia Giulia. Read more… 

Maria Luisa of Savoy

Girl from Turin ruled Spain while a teenager

Maria Luisa of Savoy, who grew up to become a queen consort of Spain with a lot of influence over her husband, King Philip V, was born on this day in 1688 at the Royal Palace in Turin.  She was the daughter of Victor Amadeus II, Duke of Savoy, and his French wife, Anne Marie d’Orleans.  Philip V of Spain wanted to maintain his ties with Victor Amadeus II and therefore asked for Maria Luisa’s hand in marriage. She was wed by proxy to Philip V in 1701 when she was still only 13.  Maria Luisa was escorted to Nice and from there sailed to Antibes en route to Barcelona. The official marriage took place in November of the same year.  Maria Luisa was both beautiful and intelligent and Philip V was deeply in love with her right from the start.  In 1702 when Philip V left Spain to fight in the War of the Spanish Succession, Maria Luisa acted as Regent in his absence.  Read more…

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Reinhold Messner - mountaineer

Climber from Dolomites who conquered Everest

Reinhold Messner, the Italian mountaineer who was the first climber to reach the summit of Mount Everest without supplemental oxygen and the first to reach the peak on a solo climb, was born on this day in 1944 in Bressanone, a town in Italy's most northerly region of Alto Adige, which is also known as South Tyrol.  Messner was also the first man to ascend every one of the world's 14 peaks that rise to more than 8,000 metres (26,000 ft) above sea level.  His 1976 ascent of Everest with the Austrian climber Peter Habeler defied numerous doctors and other specialists in the effects of altitude who insisted that scaling the world's highest mountain without extra oxygen was not possible.  Born only 45km (28 miles) from Italy's border with Austria, Messner grew up speaking German and Italian and has also become fluent in English.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: A Brief History of Italy: Tracing the Renaissance, Unification, and the Lively Evolution of Art and Culture, by Dominic Haynes

Perhaps no country has had such a lasting impact on Western culture as Italy. Whether it’s the frescoes of the Renaissance, the politics of ancient Rome, or the struggles of the Catholic Church, Italy holds a central place on the world’s stage.  But how much do you actually know about Italy and its history? You’ve likely heard of Rome, Florence, and Pompeii. But do you know about the Etruscans, who laid the foundations of modern civilization way back in the 6th century BCE? Do you know what happened between the fall of Rome and the rise of the Renaissance? Or how and why Mussolini came to power in WWII?  A Brief History of Italy gives a succinct but detailed overview of Italy’s grand, sweeping history, from ancient city-state to modern cultural mecca, rivaling the grandeur of Greece and the scholarly might of Cambridge. Whether you’re a student of Italian history looking for a refresher, a brand new learner looking for an introduction, or a future traveller looking to enhance your experience through books, this is an easy-to-read overview of the major players, events and forces in Italian history, from antiquity to today.

Dominic Haynes is the author and publisher of Dominic Haynes Histories, a series of more than 20 titles that aim to provide readers with a concise introduction to the history of a particular country or topic.

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16 September

Paolo Di Lauro - Camorra boss

Capture of mobster struck at heart of Naples underworld

Italy's war against organised crime achieved one of its biggest victories on this day in 2005 when the powerful Camorra boss Paolo Di Lauro was arrested.  In a 6am raid, Carabinieri officers surrounded a building in the notorious Secondigliano district of Naples and entered the modest apartment in which Di Lauro was living with a female companion.  The 52-year-old gang boss did not resist arrest, possibly believing any charges against him would not stick.  However, he was subsequently convicted and sentenced to 30 years' imprisonment for drug trafficking and other crimes and remains in jail.  Di Lauro's conviction was significant because it removed the man who for more than 20 years had been at the head of one of Italy’s most lucrative criminal networks and yet who had managed to maintain such a low profile that police at times suspected he was dead.  Read more…

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Sir Anthony Panizzi - revolutionary librarian

Political refugee knighted by Queen Victoria

Sir Anthony Panizzi, who as Principal Librarian at the British Museum was knighted by Queen Victoria, was a former Italian revolutionary, born Antonio Genesio Maria Panizzi in Brescello in what is now Emilia-Romagna, on this day in 1797.  A law graduate from the University of Parma, Panizzi began his working life as a civil servant, attaining the position of Inspector of Public Schools in his home town.   At the same time he was a member of the Carbonari, the network of secret societies set up across Italy in the early part of the 19th century, whose aim was to overthrow the repressive regimes of the Kingdoms of Naples and Sardinia, the Papal States and the Duchy of Modena and bring about the unification of Italy as a republic or a constitutional monarchy.  He was party to a number of attempted uprisings but was forced to flee the country in 1822. Read more…

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Terror attack on Café de Paris

Grenades thrown into iconic meeting place

The Café de Paris, a hang-out for Rome’s rich and famous during the 1950s and ‘60s and a symbol of the era encapsulated in Fellini’s classic film La dolce vita, was attacked by terrorists on this day in 1985.  Tables outside the iconic venue, on the city’s fashionable Via Veneto, were packed with tourists on a busy evening when two grenades were thrown from a passing car or motorcycle.  One of the devices, of the classic type known as pineapple grenades, failed to explode, but the other did go off, injuring up to 39 people in the vicinity.  Although 20 were taken to hospital, thankfully most were released quickly after treatment for minor wounds. There were no fatalities and only one of those hospitalised, a chef who happened to be waiting on tables at the time of the attack, suffered serious injuries.  Read more…

Pietro Tacca - sculptor

Pupil of Giambologna became major figure in own right

The sculptor Pietro Tacca, who succeeded his master, Giambologna, as court sculptor to the Medici Grand Dukes of Tuscany, was born on this day in 1577 in Carrara.  Tacca, who initially produced work in the Mannerist style, later made a significant contribution to the advance of Baroque and helped preserve Florence’s pre-eminence in bronze casting.  As well as his work for the Medici family, Tacca achieved something never before attempted with his marble equestrian statue of King Philip IV of Spain in Madrid’s Plaza de Oriente.  The sculpture, considered to be a masterpiece, is notable for depicting the monarch on a rearing horse with its front legs off the ground and the entire weight of the statue supported by its hind legs and tail.  Tacca began attending the Florence workshop of Giambologna in 1592 at the age of 15. Read more…

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Sette e mezzo: The Palermo revolt of 1866

Insurgents took control of city after a major uprising 

The Sette e mezzo revolt - so named because it lasted seven and a half days - began in Palermo, the capital of Sicily, on this day in 1866.  The uprising - five years after the island became part of the new Kingdom of Italy - brought to the surface the tensions that existed in southern Italy following the Risorgimento movement and unification. It was put down harshly by the new government of Italy, who laid siege to the city of Palermo, deploying more than 40,000 soldiers under the command of General Raffaele Cadorna.  It is not known exactly how many Sicilians were killed before the revolt was subdued. Several thousand died as a result of a cholera outbreak that swept through Palermo and the surrounding area, but it is thought that more than 1,000 may have been killed as a direct consequence of the siege.  Read more…

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Alessandro Fortis - politician

Revolutionary who became Prime Minister

Alessandro Fortis, a controversial politician who was also Italy’s first Jewish prime minister, was born on this day in 1841 in Forlì in Emilia-Romagna.  Fortis led the government from March 1905 to February 1906. A republican follower of Giuseppe Mazzini and a volunteer in the army of Giuseppe Garibaldi, he was politically of the Historical Left but in time managed to alienate both sides of the divide with his policies.  He attracted the harshest criticism for his decision to nationalise the railways, one of his personal political goals, which was naturally opposed by the conservatives on the Right but simultaneously upset his erstwhile supporters on the Left, because the move had the effect of heading off a strike by rail workers. By placing the network in state control, Fortis turned all railway employees into civil servants, who were not allowed to strike under the law.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Mafia Republic: Italy's Criminal Curse. Cosa Nostra, 'Ndrangheta and Camorra from 1946 to the Present, by John Dickie

In 1946, Italy became a democratic Republic, thereby entering the family of modern western nations. But deep within Italy there lurked a forgotten curse: three major criminal brotherhoods, whose methods had been honed over a century. As Italy grew, so did the mafias - Sicily's Cosa Nostra, the Camorra from Naples, and the mysterious 'Ndrangheta from Calabria.  Italy made itself rich by making scooters, cars and handbags. The mafias carved out their own route to wealth through tobacco smuggling, construction, kidnapping and narcotics. And as criminal business grew exponentially, the mafias grew not just more powerful, but became more interconnected.  By the 1980s, Southern Italy was on the edge of becoming a narco-state. The scene was set for a titanic confrontation between heroic representatives of the law, and mafiosi who could no longer tolerate any obstacle to their ambitions. At its peak in 1992-93, the 'Ndrangheta was beheading people in the street, and the Sicilian Mafia murdered its greatest enemies, investigating magistrates Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, before embarking on a terrorist bombing campaign on the mainland.  The reach of the Camorra, in particular, had become astonishing, the organisation controlling much of Europe's wholesale cocaine trade. In Mafia Republic, John Dickie marries outstanding scholarship with compelling storytelling.

John Dickie is Professor of Italian Studies at University College, London and author of the international bestsellers Cosa Nostra and Mafia Brotherhoods. 

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Gaetano Cozzi – historian and writer

Professor pursued academic research despite his disability

Gaetano Cozzi overcame disability to
become an expert on Venetian history

Historian, professor, and writer Gaetano Cozzi, who became an expert on the history of Venice and taught at both Venice and Padua Universities, was born on this day in 1922 in Zero Branco in the province of Treviso in the Veneto.

Although confined to a wheelchair for most of his adult life, Cozzi became famous internationally because of his research into the life of writer and statesman, Paolo Sarpi, and his own writing about the relationship between law and society in Italy.

Cozzi grew up in Legnano, a municipality of Milan, and went to military school. At the age of 20, he became a second lieutenant in the Alpine troops. While attending a training school in Parma he was kicked by a horse and suffered a leg wound. A vaccine injected into him to treat the wound caused a serious infection and although his condition stabilised after a few months he was left paralysed in his lower limbs.

He had to have frequent periods in hospital, but his medical treatment, rather than demoralising him, stimulated him intellectually. He began to take an interest in politics and came into contact with the Liberal Party in Italy. He contributed to the Resistance in 1943, while lying in his hospital bed, by writing for Italian newspapers that carried propaganda pieces. He later left the Liberal Party for the Radical party and then joined L'Unità Popolare, a short-lived Democratic and Liberal political party.

Despite being paralysed, Cozzi prepared to take his university exams and he graduated in History of Italian Law at the University of Milan in 1949. His thesis was about the writer Paolo Sarpi, and the relationship between the state and the church in Italy.

Cozzi moved to Venice to continue his research, even though life was difficult for him there because of his disability. He also found it difficult to find accommodation because of the large population in the city at the time. 

Paolo Sarpi, the Venetian writer on whose
work Cozzi became a leading authority

After the founding of the Institute for the History of Venetian Society and State, he was appointed its secretary in 1955.

His first book, about Nicolò Contarini, who was the Doge of Venice in 1630, had to be dictated by Cozzi to his mother in 1958 because his illness had once again forced him to lie in bed.

Cozzi was appointed to teach history at the Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literature in Venice and while attending a meeting at the Giorgio Cini Foundation in 1960, he met Luisa Zille, an expert in philology, who he married in 1962 in Venice. He later collaborated with his wife to edit the Complete Works of Paolo Sarpi.

In 1966, Cozzi was appointed by the ancient University of Padua to teach medieval and modern history at their faculty of Political Sciences.

After returning to teach at Ca’ Foscari University in Venice in the Faculty of Letters and Philosophy in 1970, he fought for a degree course in history to be created there. 

Cozzi was a prolific writer about criminal justice and prisons in the Venetian Republic and he also wrote The History of Venice, published in two volumes in 1986 and 1992.

In 1987, he became a board member of the newly established, Treviso-based Benetton Foundation for Studies and Research.

All Cozzi’s writing and research had to be interspersed with long periods in hospital because of complications with his health. He suffered a further blow when his wife, Luisa, who was suffering from depression, took her own life in 1995.

Cozzi’s teaching career came to an end in 1998 with a ceremony at Ca’ Foscari, where he was awarded the title of Professor Emeritus.

The historian died in 2001 in Venice at the age of 78. He was buried in the cemetery at Zero Branco next to his wife, Luisa. His gravestone bears the inscription: ‘Still together, always together.’

Casa Luisa e Gaetano Cozzi, just outside Zero
Branco, has a library housing the Cozzi archive

Travel tip:

Zero Branco is a comune - municipality - in the province of Treviso in the Veneto, located about 20km (12 miles) northwest of Venice and about 10km (6 miles) southwest of Treviso.  Casa Luisa e Gaetano Cozzi in Via Milan is now a cultural centre in the countryside outside Zero Branco, having been bequeathed to Fondazione Benetton in Gaetano Cozzi’s will. It is an eight-hectare complex consisting of a former farmhouse, rustic outbuildings, and agricultural land, which is used by the Benetton Foundation for agricultural research.  A library houses Cozzi’s documents and archives that are made available to scholars. Luisa’s Bechstein piano is preserved there and musical activities take place at Casa Cozzi in her memory.

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Porticoes and weeping willow trees line the
picturesque Canale Buranelli in pretty Treviso

Travel tip:

The pretty town of Treviso is 30km (19 miles) north of Venice. Visitors can stroll along by canals, but unlike Venice they are fringed by willow trees and adorned with the occasional water wheel and you won’t encounter large tour groups coming in the opposite direction. There are plenty of restaurants serving authentic cucina trevigiana and cucina veneta, but at more modest prices than you will find in Venice, and plenty of places to sample locally-produced Prosecco. Treviso is close to the so-called strada del prosecco, the road between Valdobbiadene and Conegliano, which is lined with wineries producing Prosecco DOC (Denominazione di Origine Controllata), the stamp of quality given to the best Italian wines. It takes only about ten minutes to walk from the railway station through the 16th century Venetian walls and along Via Roma, Corso del Popolo, and Via XX Settembre to Piazza dei Signori, at the centre of Treviso. From this central square, a short walk through Piazza San Vito leads to a picturesque part of Treviso, Canale Buranelli. You can walk alongside the canal under the porticoes of the houses and see the flower-decorated balconies on the ornate buildings on the other side. Nearby is Treviso's fish market - the  Pescheria, which is held daily on a very small island in the middle of the River Sile. Treviso’s Duomo, built in the 12th century but remodelled in the 15th, 16th, and 18th centuries, houses Titian’s Annunciation, painted in 1570, and frescoes painted by his arch rival, Pordenone.

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More reading:

Paolo Sarpi, the patriotic Venetian who the Pope wanted dead

Luciano Benetton, the entrepreneur who co-founded clothing brand

Why Treviso commemorates star tenor Mario del Monaco

Also on this day:

1616: Europe's first free public school opens in Frascati, near Rome

1881: The birth of car manufacturer Ettore Bugatti

1904: The birth of Umberto II, the last king of Italy

1919: The birth of cycling great Fausto Coppi

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15 September

NEW - Gaetano Cozzi – historian and writer

Professor pursued academic research despite his disability

Historian, professor, and writer Gaetano Cozzi, who became an expert on the history of Venice and taught at both Venice and Padua Universities, was born on this day in 1922 in Zero Branco in the province of Treviso in the Veneto.  Although confined to a wheelchair for most of his adult life, Cozzi became famous internationally because of his research into the life of writer and statesman, Paolo Sarpi, and his own writing about the relationship between law and society in Italy.  Cozzi grew up in Legnano, a municipality of Milan, and went to military school. At the age of 20, he became a second lieutenant in the Alpine troops. While attending a training school in Parma he was kicked by a horse and suffered a leg wound. A vaccine injected into him to treat the wound caused a serious infection and he was left paralysed in his lower limbs.  Read more…

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Fausto Coppi - cycling great

Multiple title-winner who died tragically young

The cycling champion Fausto Coppi, who won the Giro d’Italia five times and the Tour de France twice as well as numerous other races, was born on this day in 1919 in Castellania, a village in Piedmont about 37km (23 miles) southeast of Alessandria.  Although hugely successful and lauded for his talent and mental strength, Coppi was a controversial character. His rivalry with his fellow Italian rider Gino Bartali divided the nation, while he offended many in what was still a socially conservative country by abandoning his wife to live with another woman.  Fausto, who openly admitted to taking performance enhancing drugs, which were then legal, died in 1960 at the age of just 40 following a trip to Burkina Faso in West Africa. The cause of death officially was malaria but a story has circulated in more recent years that he was poisoned in an act of revenge. Read more…

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Ettore Bugatti - car designer

Name that became a trademark for luxury and high performance

The car designer and manufacturer Ettore Bugatti was born in Milan on this day in 1881.  The company Bugatti launched in 1909 became associated with luxury and exclusivity while also enjoying considerable success in motor racing.  When the glamorous Principality of Monaco launched its famous Grand Prix in 1929, the inaugural race was won by a Bugatti.  Although Bugatti cars were manufactured for the most part in a factory in Alsace, on the border of France and Germany, their stylish designs reflected the company’s Italian heritage and Bugatti cars are seen as part of Italy’s traditional success in producing desirable high-performance cars.  The story of Bugatti as a purely family business ended in 1956, and the company closed altogether in 1963.  The name did not die, however, and Bugatti cars are currently produced by Volkswagen.  Read more…

The first free public school in Europe

Frascati sees groundbreaking development in education

The first free public school in Europe opened its doors to children on this day in 1616 in Frascati, a town in Lazio just a few kilometres from Rome.  The school was founded by a Spanish Catholic priest, José de Calasanz, who was originally from Aragon but who moved to Rome in 1592 at the age of 35.  Calasanz had a passion for education and in particular made it his life’s work to set up schools for children who did not have the benefit of coming from wealthy families.  Previously, schools existed only for the children of noble families or for those studying for the priesthood. Calasanz established Pious Schools and a religious order responsible for running them, who became known as the Piarists.  Calasanz had been a priest for 10 years when he decided to go to Rome in the hope of furthering his ecclesiastical career.  Read more…

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Umberto II - last King of Italy

Brief reign was followed by long exile

The last King of Italy, Umberto II, was born on this day in 1904 in Racconigi in Piedmont.  Umberto reigned over Italy from 9 May 1946 to 12 June 1946 and was therefore nicknamed the May King - Re di Maggio.  When Umberto Nicola Tommaso Giovanni Maria di Savoia was born at the Castle of Racconigi he became heir apparent to the Italian throne as the only son and third child of King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy and his wife Queen Elena of Montenegro.  He was given the title of Prince of Piedmont.  Umberto married Marie Jose of Belgium in Rome in 1930 and they had four children.  He became de facto head of state in 1944 when his father, Victor Emmanuel III, transferred his powers to him in an attempt to repair the monarchy’s image after the fall of Benito Mussolini’s regime.  Victor Emmanuel III abdicated his throne in favour of Umberto in 1946. Read more…

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Book of the Day: Paolo Sarpi: Between Renaissance and Enlightenment, by David Wootton

Paolo Sarpi (1552–1623) is remembered as the defender of Venice against the Papal Interdict of 1606 and as the first, and greatest, historian of the Counter-Reformation. The sources of his hostility to clerical authority have always been a matter of controversy; many contemporaries claimed that Sarpi was an 'atheist', others that he was in secret a Protestant. David Wootton argues that Sarpi's public opinions must be assessed in the light of the views expressed in his private papers. He seeks to reinterpret Sarpi's life work as being the expression, not of a love of intellectual liberty, nor of a commitment to Protestantism, but of a carefully thought out hostility to doctrinal religion. Paolo Sarpi: Between Renaissance and Enlightenment serves to cast new light on the man and his work, as well as on the intellectual history of his age. While some historians have sought to deny the existence of systematic unbelief in Sarpi's day, others have found evidence of a radical, popular tradition. This book seeks, through its account of Sarpi's beliefs, to penetrate the hypocrisy which contemporaries agreed characterised the age, and to lay the foundations for a new understanding of the intellectual origins of unbelief.

David Wootton is the author of Power, Pleasure, and Profit, of The Invention of Science, of Galileo: Watcher of the Skies, and of Bad Medicine: Doctors Doing Harm Since Hippocrates.

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