29 June 2024

29 June

Elizabeth Barrett Browning dies in Florence

Romantic poet produced some of her best work after fleeing to Italy

English poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning died on this day in 1861 in Florence.  She had spent 15 years living in Italy with her husband, the poet Robert Browning, after being disinherited by her father who disapproved of their marriage.  The Brownings’ home in Florence, Casa Guidi, is now a memorial to the two poets.  Their only child, Robert Weidemann Barrett Browning, who became known as Pen, was born there in 1849.  Barrett Browning was one of the most prominent English poets of the Victorian era and was popular in both Britain and the United States during her lifetime.  From about the age of 15 she had suffered health problems and therefore lived a quiet life in her father’s house, concentrating on her writing.  A volume of her poems, published in 1844, inspired another writer, Robert Browning, to send her a letter praising her work.  He was eventually introduced to her by a mutual acquaintance and their legendary courtship began in secret.  They were married in 1846 and, after she had continued to live in her father’s home for a week, they fled to Italy. They settled in Florence, where they continued to write.  Read more…

_______________________________________

Masaniello - insurgent

Fisherman who led Naples revolt 

The 17th century insurgent known as Masaniello was born on this day in 1620 in Naples.  A humble fishmonger’s son, Masaniello was the unlikely leader of a revolt against the Spanish rulers of his home city in 1647, which was successful in that it led to the formation of a Neapolitan Republic, even though Spain regained control within less than a year.  The uprising, which followed years of oppression and discontent among the 300,000 inhabitants of Naples, was sparked by the imposition of taxes on fruit and other basic provisions, hitting the poor particularly hard.  Masaniello - real name Tommaso Aniello - was a charismatic character, well known among the traders of Piazza Mercato, the expansive square that had been a centre of commerce in the city since the 14th century.  Born in a house in Vico Rotto al Mercato, one of the many narrow streets around the market square, situated close to the city’s main port area, he followed his father, Ciccio d’Amalfi, into the fish trading business.   He had his own clients among the Spanish nobility, with whom he traded directly to avoid taxation. He was a smuggler, too, although he was frequently caught.  Read more…

______________________________________

Giorgio Napolitano – 11th President of Italy

Neapolitan was concerned about the development of southern Italy

Giorgio Napolitano, who served as the 11th President of the Republic of Italy, was born on this day in 1925 in Naples. He was the longest serving president in the history of the republic and the only Italian president to have been re-elected.  He graduated in law from Naples University in 1947, having joined a group of young anti-fascists while he was an undergraduate.  At the age of 20, Napolitano joined the Italian Communist Party. He was a militant and then became one of the leaders, staying with the party until 1991 when it was dissolved. He then joined the Democratic Party of the Left.  Napolitano was elected to the Chamber of Deputies for the first time in 1953 and continued to be re-elected by the Naples constituency until 1996.  His parliamentary activity focused on the issue of southern Italy’s development and on national economic policy.  As a member of the European parliament between 1989 and 1992, he regularly travelled abroad giving lectures.  In 2005 he was appointed life Senator by the President of the Republic, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi.  The following year he was elected as President of the Republic and he served until 2015.  Read more…

______________________________________

Oriana Fallaci - journalist

Writer known for exhaustively probing interviews

Oriana Fallaci, who was at different times in her career one of Italy’s most respected journalists and also one of the most controversial, was born in Florence on this day in 1929.  As a foreign correspondent, often reporting from the world’s most hazardous regions in times of war and revolution, Fallaci interviewed most of the key figures on both sides of conflicts.  Many of these were assembled in her book Interview with History, in which she published accounts of lengthy conversations, often lasting six or seven hours, with such personalities as Indira Gandhi, Golda Meir, Yasser Arafat, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Willy Brandt, Shah of Iran Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Henry Kissinger and the presidents of both South and North Vietnam during the Vietnam War.  Others she interviewed included Deng Xiaoping, Lech Wałęsa, Muammar Gaddafi and the Ayatollah Khomeini.  She seldom held back from asking the most penetrating and awkward questions. Henry Kissinger, the diplomat and former US Secretary of State, later described his meeting with Fallaci for a piece published in Playboy magazine as "the single most disastrous conversation I have ever had with any member of the press".  Read more…

_____________________________________

Federico Peliti - catering entrepreneur and photographer

Italian became important figure in British Colonial India

Federico Peliti, whose skills as a chef and pastry-maker led him to spend a large part of his life in India under British colonial rule, was born on this day in 1844 in Carignano, a town in Piedmont about 20km (12 miles) south of Turin.  He was also an accomplished photographer and collections of his work made an important contribution to the documentary history of the early years of British rule in India.  The restaurant Peliti opened in Shimla, the so-called summer capital of the British Empire in India, became a favourite with colonial high society and was mentioned in the writings of Rudyard Kipling and others.  Peliti’s family hailed from Valganna, near Varese in Lombardy. They had mainly been surveyors and Peliti initially studied sculpture at the Accademia Albertina in Turin.  He was diverted from a career in sculpture by the Third Italian War of Independence, in which he participated as a cavalryman in the 1st Nizza regiment of the Italian army. By chance, during his active service, he made friends with a group of confectioners and pastry-makers, who taught him some of their skills.  Read more…

________________________________________

Book of the Day: Browning: A Private Life, by Iain Finlayson

A major biography of the most modern and the most underrated of English literature’s great Victorians.  Henry James called Robert Browning (1812–89) ‘a tremendous and incomparable modern’, and the immediacy and colloquial energy of his poetry has ensured its enduring appeal. Browning: A Private Life sets out to do the same for his life, animating the stereotypes (romantic hero, poetic exile, eminent man of letters) that have left him neglected by modern biographers. He has been seen primarily as one half of that romantic pair, the Brownings; and while the courtship, elopement and marriage of Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning remains a perennially seductive subject (and one Finlayson evokes vividly, quoting extensively from their daily letters and contemporary accounts) there is far more to Browning than that.  Chronological in structure, this book is divided into three sections which deal with his life’s major themes: adolescence and ambition, marriage and money, paternity and poetry. It explores the many experiences that inspired his writing, his education and passions, his relationships with family and friends, his continual financial struggles and revulsion at being seen as a fortune-hunter, his most unVictorian approach to marriage (sexual equality, his helping wean Elizabeth off morphine and nursing her through various illnesses), fatherhood and fame (inviting a leading member of the Browning Society to watch him burn a trunk of personal letters): all of which contribute to a fascinating portrait of a highly unconventional Victorian. At once witty and moving, this critical biography will revolutionise perceptions of the poet - and of the man.

Acclaimed author and journalist Iain Finlayson is the author of several books including Writers in Romney Marsh and a life of Boswell. He lives in Hay on Wye.

Buy from Amazon


Home

28 June 2024

28 June

Giovanni della Casa - advocate of good manners

Bishop and poet remembered for his manual on etiquette

Giovanni della Casa, the Tuscan bishop whose witty book on behaviour in polite society became a handbook for generations long after he had passed away, was born on this day in 1503 in Borgo San Lorenzo, 30 kilometres north-east of Florence.  Born into a wealthy family, Della Casa was educated in Bologna and followed his friend, the scholar and poet Pietro Bembo, into the church.  He became Archbishop of Benevento in 1544 and was nominated by Pope Paul III as Papal nuncio to Venice. Disappointed at not having been elevated to Cardinal, however, he retired to a life of writing and reading.  At some point between 1551 and 1555, living at an abbey near Treviso, he wrote Galateo: The Rules of Polite Behaviour, a witty treatise on good manners intended for the amusement of a favourite nephew.  He thought it would be regarded as frivolous compared with other books he had written. Little did he know it would become one of the most celebrated books on etiquette in European history.  Published in Venice in 1558, it is considered one of the three great books on Italian conduct, alongside Baldassare Castiglione's Il cortegiano (The Book of the Courtier) and Niccolò Machiavelli's Il principe (The Prince).  Read more…

___________________________________

Pietro Mennea – Olympic sprint champion

200m specialist won gold at Moscow in 1980

Pietro Mennea, one of only two Italian sprinters to win an Olympic gold, was born on this day in 1952 in the coastal city of Barletta in Apulia.  Mennea won the 200m final at the Moscow Olympics in 1980, depriving Britain's Allan Wells of a sprint double. In doing so, Mennea emulated his compatriot, Livio Berruti, 20 years earlier in Rome.  He held the world record at 200m for almost 17 years, from 1979 until 1996.  His time of 19.72 seconds remains the European record.  It would stand as the world record for 16 years, nine months and 11 days, until Michael Johnson ran 19.66 at the US Olympic trials in 1996.  As well as winning his gold medal, outrunning Britain’s Allan Wells in the last 50m, Mennea’s other great Olympic feat was to reach the 200m final at four consecutive Games, the first track athlete to do so at any distance. He also won the bronze medal in Munich in 1972, was fourth in 1976 at Montreal and seventh place in Los Angeles in 1984.  At his last Olympics, in 1988, he carried the Italian flag at the opening ceremony.  Famous for his rather frantic running style, Mennea set the 200m record on September 12 1979 at the World University Games.  Read more…

_______________________________________

Walter Audisio - partisan and politician

Claimed to be the man who killed Mussolini

The partisan and later politician Walter Audisio, whose claim to be the man who executed Italy’s Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini in April 1945 is generally accepted as likely to be true, was born on this day in 1909 in Alessandria in Piedmont.  Mussolini was captured in the town of Dongo on the shore of Lake Como as he tried to flee from Italy to Switzerland, having accepted that the Axis powers were facing near-certain defeat to the Allies as the Second World War moved into its final phase.  He was taken along with his entourage to the village of Giulino di Mezzegra, 20km (12 miles) south of Dongo along the lakeside road, and after spending the night under guard in a remote farmhouse was taken back into the village, where he and his mistress, Claretta Petacci, were ordered to stand against a wall.  There they were shot dead by a partisan who went under the nom de guerre of "Colonnello Valerio", before their bodies were taken to Milan and hung by their feet from the roof of a petrol station in Piazzale Loreto, which had been the scene of the massacre of 15 partisans a year earlier.  Two years later, the Communist Party revealed that Colonnello Valerio was, in fact, Walter Audisio, and that it was he who had pulled the trigger.  Read more…

_____________________________________

Lorenzo Amoruso - footballer

Defender was most successful Italian in British football

Lorenzo Amoruso, a defender who played for teams in Italy, San Marino, England and Scotland during a career spanning almost two decades, was born on this day in 1971 in Bari.  Formerly the captain of Fiorentina, Amoruso signed for Glasgow Rangers for £4 million in 1997 and remained at the Scottish club for six seasons, during which time he won nine major trophies, which makes him the most successful Italian player in British football.  The first Catholic player to captain Rangers - traditionally the club supported by Glasgow’s Protestant community - Amoruso won the Scottish Premier League title three times, the Scottish Cup three times and the Scottish League Cup three times.  His total of winners’ medals dwarfs those of much higher profile Italian stars in England.  The illustrious Chelsea trio of Gianfranco Zola, Gianluca Vialli and Roberto di Matteo each won two FA Cup and League Cup winners’ medals, but did not feature in a Premier League title-winning team.  Amoruso began his career with his local team in Bari before moving to Florence in 1995, captaining the team that won the Coppa Italia in 1996.  Read more…

____________________________________

Book of the Day: Galateo: Or, The Rules of Polite Behavior, by Giovanni Della Casa. Translated and edited by M F Rusnak

“Since it is the case that you are now just beginning that journey that I have for the most part as you see completed, that is, the one through mortal life, and loving you so very much as I do, I have proposed to myself - as one who has been many places - to show you those places in life where, walking through them, I fear you could easily either fall or take the wrong direction.”  So begins Galateo, a treatise on polite behaviour written by Giovanni Della Casa for the benefit of his nephew, a young Florentine destined for greatness.  In the voice of a cranky yet genial old uncle, Della Casa offers the distillation of what he has learned over a lifetime of public service as diplomat and papal nuncio. As relevant today as it was in Renaissance Italy, Galateo deals with subjects as varied as dress codes, charming conversation and off-colour jokes, eating habits and hairstyles, and literary language. In its time, Galateo circulated as widely as Machiavelli’s The Prince and Castiglione’s Book of the Courtier. Mirroring what Machiavelli did for promoting political behaviour, and what Castiglione did for behaviour at court, Della Casa here creates a picture of the refined man caught in a world in which embarrassment and vulgarity prevail. Less a treatise promoting courtly values or a manual of savoir faire, it is rather a meditation on conformity and the law, on perfection and rules, but also an exasperated - often theatrical - reaction to the diverse ways in which people make fools of themselves in everyday social situations.

Giovanni Della Casa was a celebrated Italian writer and diplomat whose works in Latin and Italian spread across a stunning range of poetic and prose genres. M F Rusnak is a translator, professor, and writer.

Buy from Amazon

EN - 728x90


27 June 2024

27 June

Giorgio Vasari - the first art historian

Artist and architect who chronicled lives of Old Masters

Giorgio Vasari, whose 16th century book on the lives of Renaissance artists led to him being described as the world's first art historian, died on this day in 1574 in Florence.  Born in Arezzo in 1511, Vasari was a brilliant artist and architect who worked for the Medici family in Florence and Rome and amassed a considerable fortune in his career.  But he is remembered as much for Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, from Cimabue to Our Times, a collection of biographies of all the great artists of his lifetime.  The six-part work is remembered as the first important book on art history.  Had it not been written, much less would be known of the lives of Cimabue, Giotto, Donatello, Botticelli, Da Vinci, Giorgione, Raphael, Boccaccio and Michelangelo among many others from the generation known as the Old Masters.  Vasari, who is believed to have been the first to describe the period of his lifetime as the Renaissance, also went into much detail in discussing the techniques employed by the great artists.  It is partly for that reason that the book is regarded by contemporary art historians as "the most influential single text for the history of Renaissance art".  Read more…

_______________________________________

Gianluigi Aponte - shipping magnate

Billionaire started with one cargo vessel

Gianluigi Aponte, the billionaire founder of the Mediterranean Shipping Company, which owns the second largest container fleet in the world and a string of luxury cruise liners, was born on this day in 1940 in Sant’Agnello, the seaside resort that neighbours Sorrento in Campania.  He and his wife, Rafaela, a partner in the business, have an estimated net worth of $11.1 billion, according to Forbes magazine.  The Mediterranean Shipping Company has more than 510 container ships, making it the second largest such business in the world. Only the Danish company Maersk is bigger.  MSC Cruises, meanwhile, has grown into the fourth largest cruise company in the world and the largest in entirely private ownership. With offices in 45 countries, it employs 23,500 people, with a fleet of 17 luxury cruise liners.  Overall, the Mediterranean Shipping Company, which Aponte began in 1970 with one cargo vessel, has more than 60,000 staff in 150 countries.  Aponte has been able to trace his seafaring ancestry back to the 17th century. His family’s roots are on the Sorrentine Peninsula and there are records of his family’s boats ferrying goods between Naples and Castellammare di Stabia, just along the coast.  Read more…

_____________________________________

The Ustica Massacre

Mystery plane crash blamed on missile strike

An Italian commercial flight crashed into the Tyrrhenian Sea between Ponza and Ustica, killing everyone on board on this day in 1980.  The aircraft, a McDonnell Douglas DC9-15 in the service of Itavia Airlines was en route from Bologna to Palermo, flight number IH870. All 77 passengers and the four members of the crew were killed, making this the deadliest aviation incident involving a DC9-15 or 10-15 series.  The disaster became known in the Italian media as the Ustica massacre - Strage di Ustica - because Ustica, off the coast of Sicily, was a small island near the site of the crash.  Many investigations, legal actions and accusations resulted from the tragedy, which continues to be a source of speculation in Italy.  The fragments of the aircraft that were recovered from the sea off Ustica were re-assembled at Pratica di Mare Air Force Base near Rome. In 1989, the Parliamentary Commission on Terrorism issued a statement asserting that “following a military interception action, the DC9 was shot down, the lives of 81 innocent citizens were destroyed by an action properly described as an act of war, real war undeclared, a covert international police action against our country, which violated its borders and rights.”  Read more…

_____________________________________

Giorgio Almirante – politician

Leader who tried to make fascism more mainstream

Giorgio Almirante, the founder and leader of the neo-fascist Italian Social Movement, was born on this day in 1914 at Salsomaggiore Terme in Emilia-Romagna.  He led his political party for long periods from 1946 until he handed over to his protégé, Gianfranco Fini, in 1987.  Almirante graduated in Literature and trained as a schoolteacher but went to work for the Fascist journal Il Tevere in Rome.  In 1944, he was appointed Chief of Cabinet of the Minister of Culture to the Italian Social Republic, the short-lived German puppet state of which Benito Mussolini was the head after he was thrown out of office as Italy’s prime minister.  After the Fascists were defeated, Almirante was indicted on charges that he had ordered the shooting of partisans, but these were lifted as part of a general amnesty.  He set up his own fascist group in 1946, which was soon absorbed into the Italian Social Movement (MSI).  He was chosen as the party leader to begin with but was forced to give way to August de Marsanich as leader in 1950.   Almirante regained the leadership in 1969 and sought to make his party more moderate by dropping the black shirt and the Roman salute.  Read more…

_____________________________________

Book of the Day: The Lives of the Artists, by Giorgio Vasari

Packed with facts, attributions, and entertaining anecdotes about his contemporaries, 16th century painter and architect Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Artists is a collection of biographical accounts that also presents a highly influential theory of the development of Renaissance art.   Beginning with Cimabue and Giotto, who represent the infancy of art, in The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, from Cimabue to Our Times, to give the book its full, original title, Vasari considers the period of youthful vigour, shaped by Donatello, Brunelleschi, Ghiberti, and Masaccio, before discussing the mature period of perfection, dominated by the titanic figures of Leonardo, Raphael, and Michelangelo.  This specially commissioned translation - by Peter Bondanella and Julia Conaway Bondanella - is an abridged version of the original six-volume work, containing 36 of the most important lives as well as an introduction and explanatory notes.

Giorgio Vasari was an Italian Renaissance painter in the Mannerist style and architect and sculptor of renown, whose works included the design for Tomb of Michelangelo in the Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence, the loggia of the Palazzo degli Uffizi and the so-called Vasari Corridor, which connects the Uffizi with the Palazzo Pitti on the other side of the Arno river.  Peter Bondanella, who died in 2017, was Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Italian, Comparative Literature, and Film Studies at Indiana University, United States. Julia Conaway Bondanella is Associate Professor of Italian and Associate Director of the Honors Division at the same university.

Buy from Amazon


Home


26 June 2024

26 June

Alberto Rabagliati - singer and actor

Performer found fame through radio

The jazz singer and movie actor Alberto Rabagliati, who became one of the stars of Italian radio in the 1930s and 40s, was born on this day in 1906 in Milan.  His movie career reached a peak in the post-War years, when he had roles in the Humphrey Bogart-Ava Gardner hit Barefoot Contessa and in The Monte Carlo Story, starring Marlene Dietrich.  The son of parents who had moved to Milan from the village of Casorzo, near Asti, in Piedmont, Rabagliati’s career in the entertainment business began when he entered a competition in 1927 to find a Rudolph Valentino lookalike.  To his astonishment he won.  The prize was to be taken to Hollywood to audition, so his life changed overnight.  Later he recalled his own wide-eyed incredulity as he sailed across the Atlantic, bound for a new life.  "For someone like me, who had never been beyond Lake Como or Monza Cathedral, finding myself on board a luxury steamer with three cases full of clothes, a few rolls of dollars, grand-duchesses and countesses flirting with me was something extraordinary".  He lived in America for the next four years but never achieved more than modest success and decided to return to Italy.  Read more…

_______________________________________

Claudio Abbado – conductor

The distinguished career of a multi award-winning musician

The internationally acclaimed orchestra conductor Claudio Abbado was born on this day in 1933 in Milan.  Abbado was musical director at La Scala, the opera house in his native city, from 1972 to 1980 and remained affiliated to the theatre until 1986. He was the principal conductor of the Vienna Philharmonic and the London Symphony Orchestra and was appointed director of the Vienna State Opera and the Berlin Philharmonic.  Born into a musical family, Abbado studied the piano with his father, Michelangelo Abbado from being eight years old. His father was a professional violinist and a professor at the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory. His mother, Maria Carmela Savagnone, was a pianist and his brother, Marcello, became a concert pianist, a composer, and a teacher.  The Nazis occupied Milan during his childhood and his mother spent time in prison for harbouring a Jewish child. Abbado grew up to have anti-fascist political beliefs.  Abbado studied piano, composition and conducting at the Milan Conservatory. After deciding to be a conductor, he went to study in Vienna, winning the Koussevitzky prize in 1958 and the Metropolitan Prize in 1963. Read more… 

____________________________________

Paolo Maldini - football great

Milan defender's record-breaking career spanned 25 years

Paolo Maldini, the AC Milan defender who won the European Cup and Champions League more times than any other player in the modern era, was born on this day in 1968 in Milan.  A Milan player for the whole of his 25-year professional career - plus six years as a youth player before that - Maldini won Europe's biggest club prize five times. Only Francisco Gento, a member of the all-conquering Real Madrid side of the 1950s and 60s, has more winner's medals.  Maldini also won seven Serie A championships plus one Coppa Italia and five Supercoppa Italiana titles in domestic competition, as well as five European Super Cups, two Intercontinental Cups and a World Club Cup.  Only in international football did trophies elude him, although he played on the losing side in the finals of both the World Cup, in 1994, and the European Championships, in 2000.  His European Cup/Champions League triumphs came under the management of Arrigo Sacchi (1989 and 1990), Fabio Capello (1994) and Carlo Ancelotti (2003 and 2007).  The 1994 victory by 4-0 against Barcelona was described as one of the greatest team performances of all time.   Read more…

_______________________________________

San Marino is bombed by British

Allies believed the Germans were using rail facilities

The British Royal Air Force bombed the tiny Republic of San Marino on this day in 1944 as a result of receiving incorrect information.  It was recorded at the time that 63 people were killed as a result of the bombing, which was aimed at rail facilities. The British mistakenly believed that the Germans were using the San Marino rail network to transport weapons.  San Marino had been ruled by Fascists since the 1920s but had managed to remain neutral during the war.  After the bombing, San Marino’s government declared that no military installations or equipment were located on its territory and no belligerent forces had been allowed to enter.  However, by September of the same year San Marino was briefly occupied by German forces, but they were defeated by the Allied forces in the Battle of San Marino.  After the war, San Marino was ruled by the world’s first democratically-elected Communist government, which held office between 1945 and 1957.  The Republic of San Marino is not a member of the European Union but uses the euro as its currency.  San Marino, which is on the border between Emilia-Romagna and Marche, remains an independent state within Italy.  Read more…

_______________________________________

Book of the Day: Jazz Italian Style: From its Origins in New Orleans to Fascist Italy and Sinatra, by Anna Harwell Celenza

Jazz Italian Style explores a complex era in music history, when politics and popular culture collided with national identity and technology. When jazz arrived in Italy at the conclusion of World War I, it quickly became part of the local music culture. In Italy, thanks to the gramophone and radio, many Italian listeners paid little attention to a performer's national and ethnic identity. Nick LaRocca (Italian-American), Gorni Kramer (Italian), the Trio Lescano (Jewish-Dutch), and Louis Armstrong (African-American), to name a few, all found equal footing in the Italian soundscape. The book reveals how Italians made jazz their own, and how, by the mid-1930s, a genre of jazz distinguishable from American varieties and supported by Mussolini began to flourish in northern Italy and in its turn influenced Italian-American musicians. Most importantly, the book recovers a lost repertoire and an array of musicians whose stories and performances are compelling and well worth remembering.

Anna Harwell Celenza is a professor at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. She is the author or editor of several scholarly books, the most recent being Music and Human Flourishing (2023) and The Cambridge Companion to Gershwin (2019).

Buy from Amazon

Booking.com


Home




25 June 2024

25 June

NEW - Luigi Capello – World War I Army Commander

Popular General experienced both glory and shame

General Luigi Capello, who was held in high regard by the Allies during World War I, but was disgraced when his troops suffered a heavy defeat at the Battle of Caporetto, died on this day in 1941 in Rome.  His glamorous reputation was ruined when he was removed from his command after a disastrous defeat by the Austrian army, which resulted in 13,000 Italians killed and up to 300,000 wounded or captured, and he never resumed his military career.  Capello went on to join the Fascists and took part in the March on Rome in 1922. His fall from grace was complete after he was accused of taking part in a failed conspiracy against Mussolini in 1925. He was stripped of his military honours and sentenced to 30 years in prison, although he was released after serving 11.  Born in Intra on the shores of Lake Maggiore in 1859, Capello became a second lieutenant in the Italian Army in 1878 and embarked on military training.  He was promoted to colonel in 1910 and given an infantry regiment to command. After being made a major general, he assumed control of the Abruzzi Brigade assigned to Libya during the Italo-Turkish War.  Read more…

________________________________________

Aldo Serena - footballer

Azzurri striker left field in tears after penalty miss

Aldo Serena, one of the two Italian players who most felt the agony of defeat after the Azzurri suffered the pain of losing at the semi-final stage when the football World Cup last took place on home soil, was born on this day in 1960 in Montebelluna, a town in the Veneto.  The match that ended the host nation's participation in the Italia '90 tournament took place in Naples against an Argentina side that included the local hero, Diego Maradona. It was decided on penalties after finishing 1-1 over 120 minutes. Italy converted their opening three penalties, as did Argentina.  Then Roberto Donadoni’s shot was saved by the Argentina goalkeeper, Sergio Goycochea.  Up stepped Maradona, who scored, to the delight of many in the crowd who had divided loyalties.  Suddenly, everything was down to Aldo Serena, who could not afford to miss if Italy were to stay alive in a tournament in which they had played football at times that deserved to win.  Serena, the Internazionale striker, had been a fringe player for Italy throughout the tournament, picked only as a substitute, although he had scored in that capacity against Uruguay in the round of 16 – on his 30th birthday.  Read more…

_____________________________________

Marta Abba - actress

Aspiring star who became Pirandello’s muse

Marta Abba, who as a young actress became the stimulus for the creativity of the great playwright Luigi Pirandello, was born on this day in 1900 in Milan.  The two met in 1925 when Pirandello, whose most famous works included the plays Six Characters in Search of an Author (1921) and Henry IV (1922), asked her to see him, having read an enthusiastic appreciation of her acting talents by Marco Praga, a prominent theatre critic of the day.  Abba had made her stage debut in Milan in 1922 in Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull and was noted for the exuberance and passion of her performances. Pirandello was impressed with her and immediately hired her as first actress for his Teatro d’Arte company in Rome.  Over the next nine years until Pirandello’s death in 1936, Abba would become not only his inspiration but his confidante. When Abba was not working with him but was on stage in some other city or country, they would correspond in writing, exchanging hundreds of letters.  There was a considerable age gap between them - Abba was 24 and Pirandello 58 when they met - and their relationship was complex and not always harmonious.   Read more…

____________________________________

Elena Cornaro Piscopia – philosopher

First woman to graduate from a university

Elena Cornaro Piscopia became the first woman to receive an academic degree from a university on this day in 1678, it is believed, in Padua.  She was awarded her degree in philosophy at a special ceremony in the Duomo in Padua in the presence of dignitaries from the University of Padua and guests from other Italian universities.  Piscopia was born in a palazzo in Venice in 1646. Her father had an important post at St Mark’s and he was entitled to accommodation in St Mark’s Square.  On the advice of a priest who was a family friend, she was taught Latin and Greek when she was a young child. She was proficient in both languages by the time she was seven. She then went on to master other languages as well as mathematics, philosophy and theology.  Her tutor wanted her to study for a degree in theology at Padua University but the Bishop of Padua refused to allow it because she was female, although he allowed her to study philosophy instead.  On the day of her degree ceremony Piscopia demonstrated her brilliance in front of the specially invited audience by explaining difficult passages from Aristotle in faultless Latin.  Read more…

___________________________________

Francesco Domenico Araja - composer

Brilliant musician introduced Italian opera to Russia

Francesco Araja was the first in a long line of Italian composers to work for the Imperial Court in St Petersburg in Russia. Born on this day in 1709 in Naples, then in the Kingdom of Sicily, Araja received a musical education in his native city and was composing operas by the age of 20.  He made history as the composer of the first Italian opera to be performed in Russia and as the composer of the first opera with a Russian text.  It is thought that Araja was probably taught music by his father Angelo Araja and his grandfather Pietro Aniello Araja, who were both musicians. He was appointed maestro di cappella at the church of Santa Maria La Nova in Naples at the age of just 14.  Araja’s early operas were staged in Naples, Florence, Rome, Milan and Venice. His opera Berenice was performed in Florence in 1730, with the famous castrati, Farinelli and Caffarelli, singing the main roles in a new production in Venice in 1734.   He was invited to St Petersburg in 1735 with a large Italian opera company and became the maestro di cappella to Empress Anna Ioannovna, and later to Empress Elizaveta Petrovna.  Read more…

___________________________________

Book of the Day: The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front, 1915-1919, by Mark Thompson

The Western Front dominates our memories of the First World War. Yet a million and half men died in North East Italy in a war that need never have happened, when Italy declared war on the Habsburg Empire in May 1915. Led by General Luigi Cadorna, the most ruthless of all the Great War commanders, waves of Italian conscripts were sent charging up the limestone hills north of Trieste to be massacred by troops fighting to save their homelands. The White War explains in a great, tragic military history how it was this war that gave birth to fascism. Mussolini fought in these trenches, but so did many of the greatest modernist writers in Italian and German - Ungaretti, Gadda, Musil, Hemingway. It is through these accounts that Mark Thompson, with great skill and empathy, brings to life this forgotten conflict.

Mark Thompson lives in Oxford. He is the author of A Paper House, a much-praised account of the fall of Yugoslavia. He worked for the UN in the Balkans for much of the 1990s.

Buy from Amazon


Home


Luigi Capello – World War I Army Commander

Popular General experienced both glory and shame

Luigi Capello's war record initially made him a hero
Luigi Capello's war record
initially made him a hero
General Luigi Capello, who was held in high regard by the Allies during World War I, but was disgraced when his troops suffered a heavy defeat at the Battle of Caporetto, died on this day in 1941 in Rome.

His glamorous reputation was ruined when he was removed from his command after a disastrous defeat by the Austrian army, which resulted in 13,000 Italians killed and up to 300,000 wounded or captured, and he never resumed his military career.

Capello went on to join the Fascists and took part in the March on Rome in 1922. His fall from grace was complete after he was accused of taking part in a failed conspiracy against Mussolini in 1925. He was stripped of his military honours and sentenced to 30 years in prison, although he was released after serving 11.

Born in Intra on the shores of Lake Maggiore in 1859, Capello became a second lieutenant in the Italian Army in 1878 and embarked on military training.

He was promoted to colonel in 1910 and given an infantry regiment to command. After being made a major general, he assumed control of the Abruzzi Brigade assigned to Libya during the Italo-Turkish War.

Capello was promoted to lieutenant general in 1914 and then, after Italy entered World War I in 1915, he was assigned to the 3rd Army.

Capello, pictured on the front line, courted publicity but his popularity was not universally appreciated
Capello, pictured on the front line, courted publicity
but his popularity was not universally appreciated
After being promoted to lieutenant general, his ambitious and confident personality helped him become successful in the Sixth Battle of the Isonzo with the conquest of the city of Gorizia. 

This was the first real Italian victory in World War I and Capello became a hero with the Italian people and with the media, although he was resented by the Army Chief of Staff, Luigi Cadorna, who was jealous of his popularity and infuriated by Capello’s habit of allowing journalists to accompany him on the Italian front.

Capello was given control of the 2nd Army in 1917, which led to the conquest of Bainsizza, another great Italian victory. This reinforced the popular idea that the only Italian successes in World War I were down to Capello personally.

Everything went wrong for Capello on October 24, 1917 when he was placed alongside other armies by his rival General Cadorna to repel the Austro-German offensive. He neglected to organize the 2nd Army for defence, which they had not been used to, and this led to the complete collapse of the front line. Also, Capello had been taken ill and had to relinquish his command during the battle, returning to his post when it was too late to turn things round. 

After the Italians were defeated at the Battle of Caporetto, Capello was blamed for the disaster and he never returned to active service. He was put before a Commission of Enquiry and forced to retire.

Capello’s life came to a sorry end after his early release from the prison sentence handed down for his alleged part in the plot against Mussolini.  Living in an apartment in Rome in 1936, he was kept under surveillance by the Carabinieri until his death there in June 1941.

His military decorations were restored to him posthumously by an official decree in 1947.

An aerial view of the lakeside town of Intra, which adjoins Verbania on the shore of Lago Maggiore
An aerial view of the lakeside town of Intra, which
adjoins Verbania on the shore of Lago Maggiore

Travel tip:

Capello’s home town of Intra on Lago Maggiore is part of the municipality of Verbania. It owes its name to its geographical position, located between two rivers - ‘intra fiumina’ in Latin - in this case the San Bernardino and San Giovanni rivers. A lively tourist resort, it also boasts an interesting historic centre, with Baroque and Neoclassical architectural features to the fore in buildings such as Palazzo Peretti, an opulent villa on Via De Bonis. Look out also, in Piazza Ranzoni, for Palazzo delle Beccherie, and Palazzo del Pretorio, the former town hall that dates back to the 14th century, notable for the sundial painted on its façade. An attractive town to visit, Intra has a waterfront lined with chestnut trees, oleanders, magnolias and conifers, behind which a set of lanes, small courtyards and alleys wind towards the Basilica of San Vittore, a ancient church remodelled with of Romanesque and Baroque features in 1708.

The city of Gorizia, 42km (26 miles) east of Udine, straddles the border between Italy and Slovenia
The city of Gorizia, 42km (26 miles) east of Udine,
straddles the border between Italy and Slovenia
Travel tip:

Architecturally, Gorizia looks like a typical historic Italian town but it has changed hands several times during its history, which is not surprising given its geographical location. Situated at the foot of the Julian Alps on the Isonzo river, it literally straddles the border between Italy and Slovenia and, in fact, is part of a metropolitan area shared by the two countries, the section on the Slovenian side being now known as Nova Gorica.  Once the seat of the independent County of Gorizia, it became part of Austria in 1500 and remained so until after the First World War, when it was annexed by Italy as part of the Treaty of Saint-Germain in 1919. The town’s historical ties to Austria are still evident in its architecture and cultural heritage. It has German, Slovenian, Friulian and Venetian influences, which can be experienced in particular in the local cuisine.

Also on this day:

1678: Elena Cornaro Piscopia becomes the first woman to be awarded a university degree

1709: The birth of composer Francesco Araja

1900: The birth of actress Marta Abba

1960: The birth of footballer Aldo Serena


Home

 


 


24 June 2024

24 June

Vittorio Storaro - cinematographer

Triple Oscar winner among best in movie history

Cinematographer Vittorio Storaro, whose work has won three Academy Awards, was born on this day in 1940 in Rome.  Storaro won Oscars for Best Cinematography for Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 Vietnam War epic Apocalypse Now, for the Warren Beatty-directed historical drama Reds in 1981, and for The Last Emperor, Bernardo Bertolucci’s story of imperial China, in 1987.  Described as someone for whom cinematography was “not just art and technique but a philosophy as well”, Storaro worked extensively with Bertolucci, for whom he shot the controversial Last Tango in Paris and the extraordinary five-hour epic drama 1900.  He filmed many stories for his cousin, Luigi Bazzoni, collaborated with Coppola on three other movies and recently has worked with Woody Allen. Storaro inherited his love of the cinema from his father, who was a projectionist at the Lux Film Studio, which was based in Rome from 1940 having been established in Turin by the anti-Fascist businessman Riccardo Gualino in 1934.  He began studying photography at the age of 11.  Read more…

_______________________________________

Battle of Custoza

Austrians thwart Italy’s hopes of unifying the peninsula

An army of the recently unified Kingdom of Italy was driven out of Custoza in the Veneto region by Austrian troops on this day in 1866.  Although the Italians had twice the number of soldiers, the Austrians were victorious strategically and drove the Italians back across the Mincio river and out of the area then known as Venetia.  King Victor Emmanuel II’s younger son, Amadeo, was severely wounded in the battle but he survived his injuries and went on to reign briefly as King of Spain from 1870 to 1873.  The German Kingdom of Prussia had declared war on the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Italy seized the opportunity to join forces with Prussia, with the intention of annexing Venetia and uniting the Italian peninsula. The Austrian Imperial army joined up with the Venetian army.  The Italians divided their troops into two armies, one led by General Alfonso Ferrero La Marmora, accompanied by the King, and the other led by Enrico Cialdini.  La Marmora’s troops crossed the Mincio river and invaded Venetia. The Austrians led by Archduke Albrecht of Habsburg marched west from Verona to the north of the Italian position, so as to cut them off from the rear.  Read more…

_____________________________________

Piero Barone – singer

Young tenor found fame on TV talent show

Piero Barone, one of the three singers who make up the Italian opera and pop group, Il Volo, was born on this day in 1993 in Naro, a town in the province of Agrigento in Sicily.  Il Volo hit the headlines after winning the Sanremo Music Festival in 2015. They came third when they represented Italy in the Eurovision Song Contest with their hit Grande Amore later that year in Austria and have since acquired growing popularity worldwide.  In 2016, the group, together with tenor Placido Domingo, released Notte Magica – A Tribute to the Three Tenors, a live album featuring many of the songs performed by the Three Tenors (Domingo, Luciano Pavarotti and Jose Carreras) for their iconic concert held at the Baths of Caracalla in Rome on the eve of the Italia ’90 World Cup.  Piero’s father, Gaetano Barone, is a mechanic and his mother, Eleonora Ognibene, a housewife.  His musical talent was discovered by his grandfather, Pietro Ognibene, when he was just five years of age. Pietro was a blind musician who had written a song in Sicilian and when Piero sang it for him he was amazed by his voice.  Read more…

______________________________________

Battle of Solferino

Suffering of soldiers led to the founding of the Red Cross

The Battle of Solferino took place on this day in 1859 south of Lake Garda between Milan and Verona.  It was the last battle in world history where all the armies were under the personal command of their monarchs.  The French army under Napoleon III was allied with the Sardinian army commanded by Victor Emmanuel II. Together, they were victorious against the Austrian army led by Emperor Franz Joseph I.  The battle lasted more than nine hours and resulted in thousands of deaths on both sides.  The Austrians were forced to retreat and it was a crucial step towards the eventual unification of Italy under an Italian King.  Jean-Henri Dunant, a Swiss businessman, toured the battlefield afterwards and was horrified by what he saw, joining in with the efforts of local people to care for the injured.  Greatly moved by the suffering of the thousands of wounded and dying soldiers, he wrote a book about what he had seen and set about establishing the International Red Cross.  This battle is also referred to as the Battle of Solferino and San Martino as there was fighting near both of the towns.  Read more…

____________________________________

Benedetta Tagliabue - architect

Italian half of an acclaimed design partnership

The architect Benedetta Tagliabue, whose work in partnership with her late husband Enric Miralles included the iconic Scottish Parliament Building at Holyrood in Edinburgh, was born on this day in 1963 in Milan.  Tagliabue formed a close friendship with Barcelona-born Miralles when she was a student and he was teaching at Columbia University in New York.  They became business partners in 1991 and married a year later.  Tragically, Miralles died in 2000 at the age of just 45, having been diagnosed with a brain tumour, but Tagliabue has continued to run the business they created.  Tagliabue studied architecture in Switzerland and Venice, attending the Istituto di Architettura di Venezia (IUAV), which is part of the University of Venice. She fell in love with the city of canals and made it her home for several years. Indeed, she first met Miralles in Venice when she interviewed him for a magazine.  They were reacquainted when she went to New York for the final thesis of her degree and stayed in touch. They began a formal collaboration in 1991 and founded the architecture firm Miralles Tagliabue EMBT.  Read more…

_____________________________________

Book of the Day: The Art of Cinematography: The Great authors of cinematographic photography, by Vittorio Storaro, Bob Fisher and Lorenzo Codelli

Seen through the eyes of the most important authors of cinematographic photography. The Art of Cinematography underscores the essential importance of the figure of the cinematographer in the history of world cinema. This illustrated book, as well as presenting a rereading of the ‘seventh art’ through the eyes of the most important authors of cinematographic photography, offers an original view of the all-time greatest masterpieces of cinema. It is a review that stretches from 1910 to the present day to provide the reader with more than 150 profiles of cinematographers in a whole century of cinema. A bold and complex publishing project intended as a tribute to cinematographers everywhere, this bilingual Italian-English volume is illustrated by 150 high-quality photographic images reworked by Oscar-winner Vittorio Storaro.

Bob Fisher is an ASC Cinematographers Magazine-Academy Oscar nominee and a Kodak Magazine award winner. Lorenzo Codelli is director of the Pordenone Silent Film Festival.

Buy from Amazon

EN - 728x90


Home


23 June 2024

23 June

Arnaldo Pomodoro - sculptor

Romagnolo artist best known for his Sphere within Sphere series

The avant-garde sculptor Arnaldo Pomodoro, who became famous for a series of monumental spherical bronze sculptures with their outer surface cracked to reveal intricate interiors, was born in Morciano di Romagna, a small town just inland from the Adriatic coast, on this day in 1926. Pomodoro’s first Sphere within Sphere (Sfera con Sfera) was installed in the Cortile della Pigna courtyard at the Vatican Museums in Roma in the 1960s and he has subsequently produced versions for many locations around the world.  These include Trinity College, Dublin, the United Nations Plaza and Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, museums in Washington D.C., Tehran and Tokyo and on the beach front at Pesaro, another Adriatic resort not far from Pomodoro’s birthplace.  Broadly speaking, the sculptures, which contain a smaller sphere at the centre of the larger, broken sphere, separated by layers of what look a little like the inner workings of a watch, represent the fragility of the world or of society and the complexities that lie beneath the surface.  He was interested in art from a young age, when he was inspired by the countryside and architecture of Montefeltro,an historical region close to where he grew up.  Read more…

_________________________________________

Giuseppina Tuissi - partisan

Key figure in capture and execution of Mussolini

Giuseppina Tuissi, who was among a group of partisans who captured the deposed Fascist leader Benito Mussolini as he tried to escape to Switzerland in 1945, was born on this day in 1923 in Abbiategrasso, near Milan.  Tuissi and her comrades seized Mussolini at Dongo, a small town on the shores of Lake Como, on April 27, 1945, along with his mistress Claretta Petacci.  Having heard that Hitler was preparing to surrender to the Allies, Mussolini was trying to reach Switzerland before flying on to Spain in the hope of finding refuge under Franco’s nationalist dictatorship.  He and Petacci and their entourage were executed at the village of Giulino di Mezzegra the following day before the partisan group took their bodies to be put on public display in Milan.  Tuissi, however, would herself be killed less than a couple of months later,probably at the hands of fellow partisans who suspected her of betraying comrades during a period earlier in the year in which she had been held captive and tortured by Fascist militia and handed over to the Nazis but was then released.  Although she was born in Abbiategrasso, about 30km (19 miles) southwest of Milan, Tuissi lived and worked in Baggio, a suburb of Milan.  Read more…

________________________________________

Claudio Capone – actor and dubber

The Italian voice of a host of stars

Italy lost one of its most famous voices on this day in 2008 with the premature death of Claudio Capone.  The Rome-born actor was working in Scotland when he suffered a stroke. He was admitted to hospital in Perth but despite the best efforts of doctors he died two days later, at the age of only 55.  Although he began his career with the ambitions of any actor to reach the top of his profession, he was offered an opportunity only a few years out of drama school to do some voice-over work and found the flow of work in dubbing to be so consistent he ultimately made it his career.  Unlike some countries, Italian cinema and TV audiences have always preferred to watch imported films and TV shows with dubbed Italian voices rather than subtitles, which meant that a talented dubbing actor was seldom unemployed.  Capone was among the best and it was down to him that many foreign stars became famous in Italy, even though many did not speak a word of Italian.  The biggest example of this was the American actor Ronn Moss, who played the part of fashion magnate Ridge Forrester in the CBS soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful.  Read more…

_____________________________________

Francesca Schiavone – tennis player

First Italian woman to win a Grand Slam

Tennis champion Francesca Schiavone was born on this day in 1980 in Milan.  When she won the French Open at Roland Garros in 2010 she became the first Italian woman to win a Grand Slam event in singles. She was the runner-up in the French Open final the following year.  To date she is also the last one-handed backhand player to win a Grand Slam title on the women’s tour.  Schiavone has won six titles on the WTA tour and has also been the runner up in events 11 times.  Her highest career ranking is World Number Four, which she achieved in January 2011.  She has helped Italy win the Federation Cup in 2006, 2009 and 2010 and she has had the most wins for the Italian team.  She also appeared in the women’s doubles final at the 2008 French Open.  At the 2016 French Open in May it was mistakenly announced that Schiavone was retiring from tennis after she was defeated in the first round of the competition.  She retired from tennis after the 2018 US Open. In December 2019, Schiavone revealed she had been diagnosed with cancer earlier in the year but after successful treatment she was free of the disease.  Read more...

______________________________________

Book of the Day: Arnaldo Pomodoro: The Great Theatre of Civilizations, edited by Lorenzo Respi and Andrea Viliani

Published in collaboration with FENDI, the volume Arnaldo Pomodoro: The Great Theatre of Civilizations is an immersive journey into the work of the greatest Italian sculptor of the second half of the 20th century. The book itself is conceived as a sculpture. In a large format, it is made of luxurious materials and fitted within a perforated and die-cut slipcase that recalls the silhouette of the Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana, the iconic historic building which is both a symbol of the EUR district and the headquarters of the FENDI maison.  Arnaldo Pomodoro: The Great Theatre of Civilizations unfolds as a great “theatre” - at once real and imaginary, historical and imaginative. It presents a selection of works from the late 1950s to the present day, along with largely unpublished documentary material exploring the extensive relationship between spheres of action pertaining to the visual and performing arts in the artist’s life. Here evanescent traces of possible “civilisations” emerge – archaic, ancient, modern, or simply fictional civilizations. In their interweaving, they provide a rich archaeology, constantly redefining our knowledge, imagination, conception of time and space, history and myth, and our relationship with other species and nature.

Lorenzo Respi is Director of Exhibitions and Collections at Fondazione Modena Arti Visive.  Andrea Viliani is Director of the Museum of Civilizations in Rome. Both are members of the Scientific Committee of Fondazione Arnaldo Pomodoro

Buy from Amazon


Home