Gian Francesco Malipiero – composer and musicologist

Musician revived interest in Monteverdi and composed music in the same spirit

Malipiero was born into an 
aristocratic Venetian family

A composer and editor whose work helped to rekindle interest in pre 19th century Italian music, Gian Francesco Malipiero, was born on this day in 1882 in Venice.

Malipiero’s own output, which included operas and orchestral works, has been assessed by experts as fusing modern techniques with the stylistic qualities of early Italian music.

The composer was born into an aristocratic Venetian family and was the grandson of the opera composer Francesco Malipiero. He studied music at the Vienna conservatory and then returned to Venice to carry on his studies.

He used to copy out the music of Claudio Monteverdi and Girolamo Frescobaldi at the Biblioteca Marciana in Venice, which inspired his love of music from that period.

He moved to Bologna to continue his studies and after graduating, returned to Venice and became an assistant to the blind composer Antonio Smareglia, which he later said taught him a great deal.

In 1913 he travelled to Paris where he was influenced by the music he heard there, from composers such as Ravel and Debussy. He attended the premiere of an opera by Stravinsky, La Sacre du Printemps, and described this experience as like awakening from a ‘long and dangerous lethargy.’ This was also when he first met the composer Alfredo Casello and the poet and playwright Gabriele D’Annunzio.

Malipiero found support from the
influential Gabriele D'Annunzio

For a while Malipiero was on good terms with Benito Mussolini, but he fell out of favour when the dictator did not like him writing the music for a Pirandello libretto. Although he dedicated his next opera to Mussolini, this did not help him regain the support of the Fascists.

Malipiero was appointed professor of composition at the Parma Conservatory in 1921 and subsequently became director at the Istituto Musicale Pollini in Padua.

In 1923 he joined with Casello and D’Annunzio in creating the Corporazione delle Nuove Musiche.

In the same year, he went to live permanently in the small hill town of Asolo in the Veneto, where he worked on editing a complete edition of Monteverdi’s work, making an invaluable contribution to the recovery and promotion of the composer’s music. He also collaborated with the Istituto Antonio Vivaldi in the publication of the complete instrumental works of the Venetian composer.

Malipiero was a prolific composer of operas, orchestral music, chamber music and music for the piano and the voice and said he found Asolo the ideal location for composing his own music. His work has been judged to reflect the spirit of 17th and 18th century Venetian music.

Malipiero died in Asolo in 1973 at the age of 91.

Malipiero used to study the music of Claudio
Monteverdi at the Biblioteca Marciana in Venice

Travel tip:

The Biblioteca Marciana in Venice, where Malipiero used to study the music of Monteverdi, is also known as the Sansovino Library after the architect Jacopo Sansovino, who designed it. It is opposite the Basilica in St Marks Square and is named to commemorate the patron saint of Venice. It is one of the earliest surviving public libraries and repositories of manuscripts in Italy and holds one of the world’s most important collections of classical texts. The library was founded in 1468 when a Cardinal and scholar donated his entire collection of Greek and Latin manuscripts to the Republic of Venice. The library is open to the public from Monday to Saturday but is closed on Sundays and Italian Bank Holidays.

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The Piazza Giuseppe Garibaldi is the main square
in the beautiful Veneto town of Asolo

Travel tip:

The beautiful hill town of Asolo in the Veneto, where Malipiero settled in later life, is known as ‘the pearl of the province of Treviso’ and ‘the city of a hundred horizons’ because of its beautiful views over the countryside and the mountains. The poet Robert Browning spent time in Asolo after he became a widower. He published Asolando, a volume of poetry written in the town, in 1889. The main road leading into the town is now named Via Browning in his honour. Asolo is also where the Queen of Cyprus, Caterina Cornaro, spent her last years. One of the main sights is the Castle of Caterina Cornaro, which now houses the Eleonora Duse Theatre.

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More reading:

How Monteverdi put the opera genre on the musical map

Why Girolamo Frescobaldi is seen as one of the 'fathers' of Italian music

The complicated genius of Gabriele D'Annunzio

Also on this day:

1848: The Five Days of Milan

1925: The birth of musician Alessandro Alessandroni

1944: The last eruption of Mount Vesuvius

1945: The birth of pop singer Bobby Solo

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17 March

Angelo Beolco - playwright

Actor and dramatist with a genius for comedy

One of the most powerful Italian dramatists of the 16th century, Angelo Beolco, who was nicknamed Ruzzante (or sometimes Ruzante) after his favourite character, died on this day in 1542 in Padua in the Veneto region.  Beolco was famous for his rustic comedies, which were written mostly in the Paduan dialect of the Venetian language.  Many of his plays featured a peasant called Ruzzante and they painted a vivid picture of life in the Paduan countryside during the 16th century.  Beolco was born in Padua in 1496 and was the illegitimate son of a doctor. His mother was possibly a maid in the household where he was brought up by his father. He received a good education and after his father’s death became manager of the family estate. In 1529, he also became manager of a farm owned by a nobleman, Alvise Cornaro, who had retired to live in the Paduan countryside. Cornaro later became Beolco’s friend and protector.  Beolco met and associated with Paduan intellectuals of the time, such as the poet Pietro Bembo and the scholar and dramatist Sperone Speroni, which led to him developing an interest in the theatre.  Read more…

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Giovanni Trapattoni - football coach

His seven Serie A titles is unequalled achievement

Giovanni Trapattoni, the former Juventus and Internazionale coach who is one of only four coaches to have won the principal league titles of four different European countries, was born on this day in 1939 in Cusano Milanino, a suburb on the northern perimeter of Milan.  The most successful club coach in the history of Serie A, he won seven titles, six with Juventus and one with Inter.  His nearest challengers in terms of most Italian domestic championships are Fabio Capello and Marcello Lippi, each of whom has five scudetti to his name.  In addition, Trapattoni has also won the German Bundesliga with Bayern Munich, the Portuguese Primeira Liga with Benfica and the Austrian Bundesliga with Red Bull Salzburg, with whom he secured his 10th league title overall in 2007.  Jose Mourinho is among the other three managers to have won titles in four countries.  He has been successful in Portugal, England, Italy and Spain.  Alongside former Bayern Munich coach Udo Lattek, Trapattoni is the only coach to have won all three major European club competitions and the only one to do it with the same club.  Read more…

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Gabriele Ferzetti - actor

Starred in classic Italian films as well as Bond movie

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

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Innocenzo Manzetti - inventor

Made prototype telephone 33 years ahead of Bell

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

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Kingdom of Italy proclaimed

First king of Italy calls himself Victor Emmanuel II

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

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Book of the Day: Commerce, Peace, and the Arts in Renaissance Venice: Ruzante and the Empire at Centre Stage, by Linda L Carroll

With the Paduan playwright Angelo Beolco, aka Ruzante, as a focal point, this book sheds new light on his oeuvre and times - and on Venetian patrician interest in him - by embedding the Venetian aspects of his life within the monumental changes taking place in 15th and 16th-century Venice, politically, economically, socially, and artistically. In a study of patronage in the broadest sense of the term, Linda Carroll draws on vast quantities of new archival information; and by reading the previously unpublished primary sources against each other, she uncovers remarkable and heretofore unsuspected coincidences and connections. She documents the well-known links between the increasingly fruitless trade to the north and the need for new investments in land (re)gained by Venice on the mainland, links between problems of governance and political networks. Commerce, Peace, and the Arts in Renaissance Venice unveils the significance and potential purposes of those who invited Ruzante to perform in what are interpreted as "rudely" metaphorical truth-telling plays for Venetians at the highest social and political levels. 

Linda L Carroll is Professor of Italian at Tulane University, USA. She is the author of numerous books and articles explicating the exceptionally but opaquely candid plays of Angelo Beolco (Il Ruzante), whose Prima oratione she has edited and translated. She is co-editor of Sexualities, Textualities, Art and Music in Early Modern Italy.

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16 March

Aldo Moro - Italy's tragic former prime minister

Politician kidnapped and murdered by Red Brigades

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

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Emilio Lunghi - athlete

Italy's first Olympic medallist 

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

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Tiberius – Roman Emperor

The decline of a leader who ruled from a beautiful place of exile

After starting his reign in glory, the Emperor Tiberius slowly deteriorated and is reputed to have become steadily crueller and more debauched until he died on this day in 37 AD in Misenum, now Miseno, in Campania.  Tiberius had become the second Roman Emperor, succeeding his stepfather, Augustus, in 14 AD. As a young man, he had been a successful general, but at the age of 36 he chose to retire and go and live in Rhodes because he was determined to avoid getting involved in politics.  However, after the deaths of both grandsons of Augustus, his ailing stepfather had no choice but to make Tiberius his heir.  Tiberius inherited the throne at the age of 54 and was at first a hardworking ruler, trying to pass sensible and far-seeing laws. He stopped pointless, costly conflicts and the waste of the empire’s money and was said to have left the imperial coffers much fuller than when he inherited them.  But he was constantly at odds with the Senate, who claimed he gave vague orders to them and that they had to debate the orders among themselves so that they could decide what to do and therefore some of his legislation was never passed. Read more…

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Bernardo Bertolucci - film director

Caused outrage with Last Tango in Paris

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

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Enrico Tamberlik – tenor

Imposing king of the high C sharp

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

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Book of the Day:  The Moro Affair, by Leonardo Sciascia 

On 16 March 1978, Aldo Moro, former Italian Prime Minister, was ambushed in Rome. Within three minutes the gang killed all five members of his escort and bundled Moro into one of three getaway cars. An hour later the Red Brigades announced that Moro was in their hands; on 18 March they said he would be tried in a 'people's court of justice'. Seven weeks later Moro's body was discovered in the boot of a Renault parked in the crowded centre of Rome. In The Moro Affair, Leonardo Sciascia, whose work often shed light on the dark side of Italian life and society, untangles the real-life events of these crucial weeks and provides a unique insight into the dangerous world of Italian politics in the 1970s.

Leonardo Sciascia, who was born in Sicily in 1912 and died there in 1989, was a master of lucid and accessible prose  who worked with deceptively simple forms - books about crime, historical novels, political thrillers - in order to engage with the moral and historical problems of modern Italy, especially his native Sicily.

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15 March

Salvator Rosa – artist

Exciting Baroque painter inspired others

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

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Cesare Beccaria - jurist and criminologist

Enlightened philosopher seen as father of criminal justice

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

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Gianluca Festa - footballer

Sardinian became a favourite in England

The footballer and coach Gianluca Festa, who played 177 matches in Italy’s Serie A but is best remembered as the first Italian defender to sign for a club in England’s Premier League, was born on this day in 1969 in Cagliari.  Festa joined Middlesbrough in January 1997 after manager Bryan Robson agreed to pay Inter-Milan £2.7million for the centre-back, who joined his Italian compatriot Fabrizio Ravanelli at the northeast England club.  Ravanelli had arrived in England the previous summer as one of a number of Italian stars to move from Serie A, a sign that the Premier League was beginning to challenge Serie A for the right to be called Europe’s top league.  Chelsea had signed Gianluca Vialli from Juventus and Roberto Di Matteo from Lazio, to be joined by Parma’s Gianfranco Zola later in the autumn, and Sheffield Wednesday had bought Festa’s former Inter teammate Benito Carbone.  Four of those five were forwards - Di Matteo operated in midfield - and Middlesbrough, who had been promoted in 1995 but were finding their second season difficult, broke new ground by tapping into Italy’s reputation for producing top-quality defenders.  Read more…

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The murder of Julius Caesar

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

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

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Giuseppe Mezzofanti - hyperpolyglot

Roman Catholic Cardinal could speak 38 languages

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

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Book of the Day: Salvator Rosa: Paint and Performance, by Helen Langdon

Painter, poet and actor Salvator Rosa was one of the most engaging and charismatic personalities of seventeenth-century Italy. Although a gifted landscape painter, he longed to be seen as the pre-eminent philosopher-painter of his age. This new account traces Rosa's strategies of self-promotion, and his creation of a new kind of audience for his art. The book describes the startling novelty of his subject-matter - witchcraft and divination, as well as prophecies, natural magic and dark violence - and his early exploration of a nascent aesthetic of the sublime.  Salvator Rosa shows how the artist, in a series of remarkable works, responded to new movements in thought and feeling, creating images that spoke to the deepest concerns of his age. Gabriele Finaldi, Director of the National Gallery, London, described Salvator Rosa: Paint and Performance as a ‘superb biography . . . [which] presents the artist in all his brilliance and wit, his vaulting ambition, his potent originality as a painter and his infuriating complexity as a person.'

Helen Langdon is an art historian with a special interest in the Italian Baroque. She is author of Claude Lorrain (1989) and Caravaggio: A Life (1999) and is based in London.

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14 March

Giovanni Schiaparelli - astronomer

Discoveries sparked belief there was life on Mars

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

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Giangiacomo Feltrinelli – publisher

Accidental death of an aristocratic activist

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

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Victor Emmanuel II

The first king to rule over a united Italy

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

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Giuseppe Maria Crespi - painter

Artist from Baroque period who excelled in genre painting

The painter Giuseppe Maria Crespi, one of the first Italian exponents of genre painting, which depicts ordinary people in scenes from everyday life, was born on this day in 1665 in Bologna.  Crespi also painted portraits and caricatures as well as religious paintings, especially at the beginning and end of his career. Even in his religious work, the scenes would include ordinary people, such as his acclaimed series, the The Seven Sacraments, originally commissioned by Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni in Rome, which now hangs in the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister - the Old Masters’ Gallery - in Dresden.  Growing up in Bologna, he learned the basics of drawing and painting from Angelo Michele Toni, to whom he was apprenticed at the age of 12. His taste in clothes - he favoured the tight garments characteristic of Spanish fashion - earned him the nickname Lo Spagnuolo - the Spaniard.  After leaving Toni, he spent much time studying and copying the work around the city of the Carracci brothers - Annibale, Agostino and Ludovico - whose fresco decorations adorned the cloister of San Michele in Bosco and the Palazzo Magnani and Palazzo Fava. Their work proved to be a lasting influence.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Atlas of Astronomical Discoveries, by Govert Schilling

In his Atlas of Astronomical Discoveries, astronomy journalist Govert Schilling tells the story of 400 years of telescopic astronomy. He looks at the 100 most important discoveries since the invention of the telescope. Doing what Schilling does best, he takes the reader on an adventure through both space and time. Photographs and amazing pictures line the pages of this book, offering the reader an escape from this world and an invitation to a world far beyond what the unaided human eye can detect. The book offers a unique combination of informative text, magnificent illustrations and stylish design, examines the 100 most important discoveries since the invention of the telescope and features spectacular photographs, taken with the largest telescopes on Earth and in space, that portray distant corners of the universe.

Govert Schilling is an internationally acclaimed astronomy writer in the Netherlands. He is a contributing editor of Sky & Telescope, and his articles have appeared in Science, New Scientist and BBC Sky at Night Magazine. He has written more than 50 books. In 2007, the International Astronomical Union named asteroid (10986) Govert after him.

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13 March

NEW - Pope Innocent XII

Pontiff who banned nepotism in papal appointments 

Pope Innocent XII, whose nine years as Pope at the end of the 17th century were notable for his ban on the practice of pontiffs appointing relatives to key positions in the papal court, was born Antonio Pignatelli on this day in 1615.  Innocent XII, who was elected Pope in July 1691 and led the Catholic Church until his death in September 1700, issued the papal bull entitled Romanum decet pontificem within a year of taking office, abolishing the position of Cardinal-Nephew in the church hierarchy.  The creation of Cardinal-Nephew as an office in the church had been officially recognised since 1566 but the practice of appointing family members had been used by a succession of popes since the Middle Ages to help them consolidate family power and wealth in an era when papal authority extended well beyond the confines of the church.  The practice gave rise to the use of the term nepotism to describe the act of granting an advantage, privilege, or position to relatives or friends in any occupation or field. The word originates from cardinalis nepos, the Latin translation of ‘cardinal nephew’ - cardinale nipote in Italian.  Read more…

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Ligabue - record-breaking rock star

Musician and writer once dubbed 'Italy's Springsteen'

Rock musician Luciano Ligabue - known simply as Ligabue - was born on this day in 1960. Once dubbed ‘Italy’s Springsteen’, he has been hugely successful in his own country but has never managed to achieve true international recognition. Yet such is his popularity in Italy that a Ligabue concert held on a stage erected on Reggio Emilia's airfield in 2005 attracted an audience of 180,000, a European record for a paid-for event headlined by a single artist. He has played before audiences of more than 110,000 at the Giuseppe Meazza football stadium in Milan -- the home of Internazionale and AC Milan -- and has twice repeated the so-called Campovolo event in Reggio Emilia. In September 2015, a concert to celebrate Ligabue's 25 years in the music business sold 150,000 tickets, setting another record as the most lucrative single music concert in Italian history, with proceeds of around €7 million.  Although he grew up with a love of music, it was some years before Ligabue was able to make a living from his passion. As a young man, he flitted from one job to another.  Read more…

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Flavia Cacace - dancer

Star of Strictly Come Dancing famous for Argentine Tango

The dancer Flavia Cacace, who found fame through the British hit television show, Strictly Come Dancing, was born on this day in 1980 in Naples.  She and professional partner Vincent Simone, who is from Puglia, performed on the show for seven seasons from 2006 to 2012.  The show, which has been mimicked in more than 50 countries across the world, including Italy and the United States, pairs celebrities with professional dancers, combining Latin and ballroom dances in a competition lasting several months.  Cacace, who was runner-up in 2007 with British actor Matt d'Angelo, left the show as champion in 2012 after she and the British Olympic gymnast Louis Smith won the final, which was watched by an estimated 13.35 million viewers.  The youngest of six children, Cacace moved to England shortly before her fifth birthday when her father, Roberto, a chef, decided to look for work opportunities in London.  Her family are from the Vomero district of Naples, a smart neighbourhood that occupies an elevated position on a hill overlooking the city, offering spectacular views.   Read more…

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Eduardo Scarpetta - actor and playwright

Much-loved performer began theatrical dynasty

Eduardo Scarpetta, one of the most important writers and actors in Neapolitan theatre in the last 19th and early 20th centuries, was born on this day in 1853 in Naples.  Fascinated by the commedia dell’arte and Neapolitan puppet theatre character Pulcinella, Scarpetta was the writer of more than 50 dialect plays in the comedy genre, creating his own character, Felice Sciosciammocca, a wide-eyed, gullible but essentially good-natured Neapolitan who featured prominently in his best-known work, Miseria e Nobiltà (Misery and Nobility). His plays made him wealthy, although his standing was damaged towards the end of his career by a notorious dispute with Gabriele D’Annunzio, the celebrated playwright and poet with aristocratic roots who was a considerable figure in Italian literature.  A showman with a reputation for throwing extravagant parties, Scarpetta led a complicated personal life that saw him father at least eight children by at least four women, of which only one was by his wife, Rosa De Filippo.  One of his relationships, with Rosa’s niece, Luisa, a theatre seamstress, produced three children - Eduardo, Peppino and Titina De Filippo - central figures in an Italian theatre and film dynasty in the 20th century.  Read more…

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Bruno Conti - World Cup winner

Roma star was key figure for azzurri in 1982 victory

The former footballer - now coach - Bruno Conti, who played a starring role as Italy won the World Cup in Spain in 1982, was born on this day in 1955 in Nettuno, a seaside resort south of Rome.  A winger with extravagant skills, Conti became an increasingly influential figure as the azzurri campaign in 1982 gathered momentum after a slow start.  He scored Italy’s goal against Peru in the first group stage, a fine shot into the top right-hand corner from 20 yards (18m), although as a team Italy were not at their best and failed to win any of their opening three matches, scraping into the second group phase only by virtue of having scored more goals than Cameroon, who finished with the same number of points.  But the second phase saw a transformation as Italy defied the odds to beat the holders Argentina and the multi-talented Brazil team of Socrates, Zico and Falcao who had started the tournament as hot favourites.  Although the striker Paolo Rossi ultimately took the headlines with his hat-trick against Brazil, Conti played superbly in both matches, his runs and turns posing problems repeatedly for the opposition defence.  Read more…

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Corrado Gaipa – actor

From The Godfather to voice of Alec Guinness

The respected character actor and voice-dubber Corrado Gaipa was born on this day in 1925 in Palermo.  His versatility as a voice actor brought him considerable work at a time when Italian cinema audiences much preferred to watch dubbed versions of mainstream English-language films rather than hear the original soundtrack with subtitles.  Gaipa’s voice replaced that of Alec Guinness as Obi-Wan Kenobi in the original Star Wars trilogy.  He was also heard dubbing Spencer Tracy in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, Burt Lancaster in The Leopard, Telly Savalas in The Dirty Dozen and Lee J Cobb in The Exorcist.  He was the voice of a number of characters in animation films also, including Bagheera in Walt Disney’s The Jungle Book and Scat-Cat in The Aristocats.  As an actor in his own right, he worked with many leading directors in Italian cinema, including Francesco Rosi and Vittorio Gassman. His most famous role was probably that of Don Tommasino in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather.  In Mario Puzo’s story, Don Tommasino was an old friend in Sicily of the movie’s main character, Vito Corleone.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Dark History of the Popes, by Brenda Ralph Lewis

In the 10th century, being head of the Catholic Church didn’t stop Pope John XII from allegedly committing incest with his sisters, calling on pagan gods and goddesses, being an alcoholic and putting his mistress in charge of his brothel. Of course, being Pope didn’t make popes popular either: in 896AD, Pope Formosus died, but that was no obstacle to Lambert of Spoleto, who bore something of a grudge, in exhuming the pontiff and putting him on trial. Formosus was found guilty of being unworthy of his papal office, had all his acts annulled and his body was thrown in the Tiber. From corruption to nepotism, from crusade to witch-burning to Inquisition, from popes sanctioning murder to popes being murdered, Dark History of The Popes explores more than 1000 years of sinister deeds surrounding the papacy. Ranging from the 9th century AD to Pope Pius XII’s position during World War II, the book examines political, religious and social history through the skulduggery of popes and courtiers, the role the Borgias family played in the papacy, the persecution of Jews and the religious controversy over Galileo Galilei’s heretical views, among other topics. Using diaries, letters, reports from foreign ambassadors to the Vatican and official registers of the ecclesiastical courts, a picture of both sinning and sinned against popes is revealed. Packed with more than 200 colour and black-&-white photographs, paintings and artworks, Dark History of The Popes is an eye-opening account of the history of the papacy that pontiffs would rather not mention.

Brenda Ralph Lewis is a prolific writer with over 70 books to her name. In 1997-1998, she wrote a complete part-work celebrating the life of Diana, Princess of Wales. Formerly royal correspondent for four British newspapers, she has contributed regular articles for Royalty magazine and appeared in TV documentaries about the monarchy.

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Pope Innocent XII

Pontiff who banned nepotism in papal appointments 

A divided papal conclave elected Pope
 Innocent XII as a compromise candidate 

Pope Innocent XII, whose nine years as Pope at the end of the 17th century were notable for his ban on the practice of pontiffs appointing relatives to key positions in the papal court, was born Antonio Pignatelli on this day in 1615.

Innocent XII, who was elected Pope in July 1691 and led the Catholic Church until his death in September 1700, issued the papal bull entitled Romanum decet pontificem within a year of taking office, abolishing the position of Cardinal-Nephew in the church hierarchy.

Cardinal-Nephew as an office in the church had been officially recognised since 1566 but the practice of appointing family members had been used by a succession of popes since the Middle Ages to help them consolidate family power and wealth in an era when papal authority extended well beyond the confines of the church.

The practice gave rise to the use of the term nepotism to describe the act of granting an advantage, privilege, or position to relatives or friends in any occupation or field. The word originates from cardinalis nepos, the Latin translation of cardinal nephew - cardinale nipote in Italian.

It was a practice Pignatelli was determined to stamp out, viewing it as an abuse of power, and he set out to build on the groundwork done by Pope Innocent XI between 1676 and 1689 but which his immediate predecessor, Pope Alexander VIII, had not advanced.

Pignatelli was born in Spinazzola, a town now in Puglia but then in the Kingdom of Naples, about 80km (50 miles) west of Bari. His aristocratic family included several Viceroys and ministers of the crown.  He was educated at the Collegio Romano in Rome where he earned a doctorate in both canon and civil law.

Pope Innocent XII's tomb in 
Saint Peter's Basilica

He became an official of the court of Pope Urban VIII at the age of 20 and thereafter held a number of diplomatic roles including Inquisitor of Malta and Governor of Perugia. 

After he was ordained as a priest, he was made Titular Archbishop of Larissa. He subsequently served as the Apostolic Nuncio to Poland and later Austria. Pope Innocent XI appointed him as the Cardinal-Priest of San Pancrazio and then of Faenza. His final post before the papacy was  Archbishop of Naples. 

Pope Alexander VIII died in 1691, after which the conclave to select his successor was split between factions loyal to France, Spain and the broader Holy Roman Empire. After a five-month deadlock, Cardinal Pignatelli emerged as a compromise candidate and was crowned on July 15, when he was given possession of the Basilica of Saint John Lateran.

As well as outlawing the Cardinal-Nephew position, which meant that popes could not bestow estates, offices, or revenues on any relative, Innocent XII introduced other reforms.

These included economies in the way the church was run and improvements in the way the church administered justice. He also appointed Marcello Malpighi, a pioneer in the use of the microscope in medicine, as his personal physician and made him Professor of Medicine at the Sapienza University of Rome.

After a long period of ill health that caused him to miss a number of important engagements in 1700, Innocent XII died on September 27 of that year, to be succeeded by Pope Clement XI.

His tomb in Saint Peter's Basilica was sculpted by Filippo della Valle.

Via Acerenza is typical of the narrow, cobbled
streets that fan out from Spinazzola's main street

Travel tip:

Formerly part of Basilicata, the border of which is less than 5km away, Spinazzola has been part of Puglia since 1811.  It is a charming small town in the province of Barletta-Andria-Trani, with narrow cobblestone streets, traditional stone houses and a number of historic buildings, with Roman and Byzantine influences.  The countryside around it is particularly picturesque. Pope Innocent XII’s family owned a castle in the town but it fell into disrepair and was demolished at the beginning of the 20th century. Some remains of a medieval city wall still exist, along with the 16th century mother church of San Pietro Apostolo and the first Templar hospital. Historic palaces include the Saracen Palace on Corso Vittorio Emanuele, one of the main streets through the town’s narrow historic centre.  The centre of the town’s social life is Piazza Plebiscito, a square at the junction of Corso Vittorio Emanuele and Corso Umberto I.

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Rome's Collegio Romano, which Antonio Pignatelli
attended before becoming Pope, was built in 1582

Travel tip:

Rome’s Collegio Romano - the city’s Jesuit College - was established in 1551 by Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Jesuit Order. A new building was erected for the College, under the patronage of Pope Gregory XIII, in 1582. The building can be found in the central Pigna district of the city in a square now known as Piazza del Collegio Romano. It is currently used partly by the Ministry of Heritage and Culture and partly by the Ennio Quirino Visconti high school.  Pigna takes its name from an enormous Roman bronze statue in the shape of a pine cone, which once adorned an ancient Roman fountain.  The sculpture was later moved to the Cortile del Belvedere at the Vatican Palace, where it stands alongside a pair of bronze Roman peacocks from Hadrian’s mausoleum. The area’s tourist attractions include the Pantheon, built in 118AD and considered to be Rome’s best preserved ancient building.

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More reading:

Urban VIII, the pope whose extravagance led to disgrace

Why a 16th century Pope decreed that 10 days would not happen

The Pope who commissioned Michelangelo for the Sistine Chapel

Also on this day: 

1853: The birth of actor and playwright Eduardo Scarpetta

1925: The birth of actor Corrado Gaipa

1955: The birth of footballer Bruno Conti

1960: The birth of rock musician Luciano Ligabue

1980: The birth of dancer Flavia Cacace

(Picture credits: tomb by Samuraijohnny; Via Acerenza by Forsehairagione; Collegio Romano by Lalupa; via Wikimedia Commons)

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