Nicola Rizzoli - football referee

Third Italian to take charge of World Cup Final

Nicola Rizzoli retired in 2017 after
15 years refereeing top-level matches

The football referee Nicola Rizzoli, who in 2014 became the third Italian to take charge of a men’s World Cup Final, was born on this day in 1971 in Mirandola, a town in Emilia-Romagna about 35km (22 miles) north of Modena.

Rizzoli, who had refereed the UEFA Champions League Final in 2013, followed Sergio Gonella (1978) and Pierluigi Collina (2002) in being handed the ultimate honour for football officials.

It was his responsibility to referee the match between Germany and Argentina in the Maracana stadium in Rio de Janeiro to decide the winners of the 2014 tournament, hosted by Brazil. 

At the age of 42, he was the same age as Collina had been when he refereed the Brazil-Germany final in 2002, but three years younger than Gonella was when given charge of hosts Argentina against the Netherlands in 1978.

Germany, who had famously humbled the 2014 hosts by a stunning 7-1 margin in the semi-finals, beat Lionel Messi’s Argentina 1-0 in the 2014 final, thanks to a goal in extra time by the substitute, Mario Götze. 

Rizzoli was commended for his handling of the match, between two of international soccer’s biggest rivals, which passed with no controversial decisions. He was praised for alerting the Germany bench after their midfield player Christoph Kramer began to show the effects of concussion following a blow to the head. Kramer played on for several minutes after the injury but then alarmed Rizzoli by twice asking him if he was playing in the final.

Although born in Mirandola, Rizzoli grew up in Bologna, the home city of his idol among referees, the renowned Collina.

Rizzoli took charge of the
2014 World Cup Final

Like most young Italian boys - and many girls - he had dreams of being a player, but his youth games in the Bologna area were often notable for his arguments with referees. In an interview in May, 2024 with the newspaper, Gazzetta di Modena, he explained that he took up refereeing after a friend suggested that, rather than contest decisions, he should study the rules of the game.

Alongside football, he decided at the age of 13 that he wanted to be an architect. He told the Gazzetta di Modena that, as well as enjoying drawing as a pastime, he ‘loved the smell of paper that you breathed in stationery shops’.

He obtained a degree in architecture at the University of Florence and began to develop a career while simultaneously working his way up the refereeing ladder, from club matches around Bologna to the lower divisions of the Italian professional leagues.

Trying to do both was not without problems. He recalled that a missed flight after refereeing a Serie D match in Calabria led him to question what he was doing and that an offer to join a studio in Milan tempted him to give up his whistle. 

He procrastinated long enough, however, to make the breakthrough he had craved in football when he was given his first Serie A match, between Venezia and Perugia, in April, 2002. 

In the event, he continued to work as an architect for another 10 years, stopping only when his international match commitments began to take up too much of his time. He takes pride in his achievements in the architectural field, too, not least the completion of the Pediatric Oncology building at Sant'Orsola Hospital in Bologna, which he built in 2001.

As an architect, Rizzoli designed the Pediatric
 Oncology unit at Bologna's Sant'Orsola Hospital

In addition to the 2014 World Cup Final and the 2013 Champions League decider, contested between Borussia Dortmund and Bayern Munich at Wembley Stadium in England, Rizzoli officiated in the inaugural UEFA Europa League Final in 2010, as Atlético Madrid defeated Fulham 2–1, and was on the list of referees chosen for both the 2012 and 2016 European Championships.

He refereed in Serie A between 2002 and 2017, achieving his ambition of taking charge in more than 200 top-division matches before he retired. Among his honours, he was named Serie A referee of the year by the Italian Football Federation for seven consecutive seasons between 2011 and 2017 and “world’s best referee” by the International Federation of Football History and Statistics twice, in 2014 and 2015. He was inducted to the Italian Football Hall of Fame in 2018.

After retirement, he became Head of Refereeing for Serie A and more recently was appointed Technical Refereeing Advisor for Concacaf, the FIFA-affiliated governing body for football in North and Central America and the Caribbean.

Rizzoli still lives in Bologna but maintains strong connections with the area around Modena, where his extended family still live.

The restored Castello dei Pico is among the main
sights in Rizzoli's home town of Mirandola

Travel tip:

Mirandola, the town of 22,000 people where Nicola Rizzoli was born, originated as a Renaissance city-fortress. For four centuries it was the seat of an independent principality and a possession of the Pico family, whose most famous member was the polymath Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463–94).  Besieged in 1510 by Pope Julius II and in 1551 by Pope Julius III, it was taken over by the Duchy of Modena in 1710 but went into decline after its castle - the Castello dei Pico - was partially destroyed in 1714. The castle has recently been restored and is open to the public. Other notable buildings include the 1468 Gothic-style Palazzo del Comune and the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore, which also dates from the late 15th century. The Church of San Francesco, which houses the tombs of the Pico family, collapsed when a 5.8 magnitude earthquake hit the area in 2012, killing 17 people, injuring many others, and damaging the homes of 14,000 inhabitants.

Piazza Maggiore, dominated by the Basilica of
San Petronio, is at the heart of the city of Bologna

Travel tip:

The city of Bologna, where Nicola Rizzoli grew up and was registered as a referee, has seen its city centre undergo substantial restoration since the 1970s. It is one of the largest and best preserved historical centres in Italy, characterised by 38km (24 miles) of walkways protected by porticoes.  At the heart of the city is the beautiful Piazza Maggiore, dominated by the Gothic Basilica of San Petronio, which at 132m long, 66m wide and with a facade that touches 51m at its tallest, is the 10th largest church in the world and the largest built in brick.  The history of Bologna, one of Italy's oldest cities, can be traced back to 1,000BC or possibly earlier, with a settlement that was developed into an urban area by the Etruscans, the Celts and the Romans.  The University of Bologna, the oldest in the world, was founded in 1088. Bologna’s football club made history in 2024 by qualifying for the UEFA Champions League for the first time.

Also on this day:

1658: The birth of Mary of Modena

1712: The birth of painter Francesco Guardi

1928: The birth of painter Alberto Sughi

2014: The death of racing driver Andrea De Cesaris

Home

4 October

Giovanni Battista Piranesi – artist

Genius who put 18th century Rome on the map

Draftsman, printmaker and architect Giovanni Battista Piranesi was born on this day in 1720 in Mogliano Veneto near Treviso in the Veneto.  He became famous for his large prints depicting the buildings of Rome, which stimulated interest in Rome and inspired the neoclassical movement in art in the 18th century.  Piranesi went to Rome to work as a draftsman for the Venetian ambassador when he was 20. There he studied with some of the leading printmakers of the day.  It was during this period that he developed his own, original etching technique, producing rich textures and bold contrasts of light and shadow by means of intricate, repeated bitings of the copperplate.  Among his finest early prints are the Prisons - Carceri - imaginary scenes depicting ancient Roman ruins, which are converted into fantastic dungeons filled with scaffolding and instruments of torture.  Piranesi later opened a workshop in Via del Corso and created the series of vedute - views - of Rome that established his fame.  Among his best mature prints are the series Roman Antiquities - Le antichita romane, Views of Rome - Vedute di Roma - and views of the Greek temples at Paestum.  Read more…

______________________________________

Feast of Saint Francis of Assisi

Lamps light up Assisi in memory of saint

The city of Assisi in Umbria is today celebrating the Feast Day - la festa - of their famous Saint, Francis - Francesco -  who is one of the most venerated religious figures in history.  It is the most important festival in the Franciscan calendar as it commemorates Saint Francis’s transition from this life to the afterlife.  For two days Assisi is illuminated by lamps burning consecrated oil. Special services are held in the Basilica Papale di San Francesco and the Basilica di Santa Maria degli Angeli.  The feast day is also celebrated in other churches all over the world and children are encouraged to bring their pets to be blessed in memory of Saint Francis’s love for animals.  Saint Francis was born Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone in about 1181 in Assisi but he was informally known as Francesco by his family.  A theory is that his father, Pietro di Bernardone, a prosperous silk merchant, decided to call his new son Francesco - the Frenchman - because he had been on business in France at the time of the birth.  His wife, Pica de Bourlemont, was a noblewoman from Provence, although it was she who chose the name Giovanni.  Read more…

____________________________________

Francesco Solimena - painter

Neapolitan artist who influenced a generation

Francesco Solimena, a prolific painter in the Baroque style who became one of the wealthiest and most influential artists in Europe, was born on this day in 1657 in Canale di Sereno, a village in Campania about 14km (9 miles) southeast of Avellino.  He spent most of his working life in Naples yet his fame spread far beyond and his work was in such demand among his wealthy patrons, including Prince Eugene of Savoy, Louis XIV of France and Pope Benedict XIII, that he acquired a considerable fortune, was given the title of baron and lived in a palace.  His workshop became effectively an academy, at the heart of the Naples cultural scene. Among many who trained there were the leading painters Francesco de Mura, Giuseppe Bonito, Corrado Giaquinto and Sebastiano Conca.  The Scottish portraitist Allan Ramsay was a pupil in his studio in around 1737-38.  Solimena’s own training came initially from his father, Angelo, a revered painter of frescoes, with whom he worked at the cathedral of Nocera in the province of Salerno, and at the church of San Domenico at Solofra, not far from his home village.  He often worked in Nocera later in life.  Read more…

____________________________________

The Gregorian Calendar

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

The Gregorian Calendar, which is used today by every country in the world with just four exceptions, was introduced by Pope Gregory XIII on this day in 1582.  The calendar replaced the Julian calendar, which had been implemented by Julius Caesar in 46 BC but which was based on a miscalculation of the length of the solar year and had gradually fallen out of sync with the seasons.  The Catholic Church wanted to make the change because the actual spring equinox - one of the two days in each year when the sun appears directly above the equator - was drifting further away from the ecclesiastical date of the equinox, which in turn determines the date of Easter.  In Christian tradition, Easter marks the resurrection of Jesus three days after his crucifixion, which historical evidence suggests occurred around the time of the spring equinox, nominally dated as March 21.  The miscalculation in the Julian calendar seems tiny, an assumption that the average solar year was exactly 365.25 days when the reality is 365.2422 days. Yet even after the inclusion of the supposedly corrective leap year every four years, the error meant that over the 1,628 years of the calendar’s use, the gap between the actual equinox and the date of the equinox in the ecclesiastical year had grown to 12.7 days.  Read more…

________________________________________

Bernardino Ramazzini - physician

Pioneer in knowledge of occupational diseases, cancer and malaria

The physician Bernardino Ramazzini, often described as the “father of occupational medicine” and responsible also for pioneering work in the study of cancer and the treatment of malaria, was born in Carpi in Emilia-Romagna on this day in 1633.  Ramazzini’s tour de force, which he completed at the age of 67, was his book De Morbis Artificum Diatriba - Discourse of the Diseases of Workers - which came to be regarded as a seminal work in his field, the lessons from which still influence practice today in the prevention and treatment of occupational diseases.  A student at the University of Parma, Ramazzini was appointed chair of theory of medicine at the University of Modena in 1682 and professor of medicine at the University of Padua from 1700 until his death in 1714.  It was while he was in Parma that he began to take an interest in diseases suffered by workers.  When he became a departmental head at Modena, he began to study the health problems of workers in a more systematic way.  He would visit their workplaces, observe the activities they undertook in their work and discuss their health problems with them.  Read more…

_______________________________________

Ignazio Boschetto - tenor

Talented singer is known for being the funny guy in Il Volo

Ignazio Boschetto, a singer in the award-winning pop and opera trio Il Volo, was born on this day in 1994 in Bologna in the region of Emilia-Romagna.  His Sicilian parents, Vito Boschetto and Caterina Licari, took him back to live in Sicily and he grew up in Marsala in the province of Trapani in the most western part of Sicily.  He has said in interviews that from being about three years old he used to sing operatic arias alone in his room, such as La donna e mobile from Rigoletto by Giuseppe Verdi, much to the surprise of his parents.  Ignazio could be classed as a lyric tenor, considering the timbre of his voice, which is warm and soft, but strong enough to sing over an orchestra. A complete artist, Ignazio also plays the piano, guitar and drums.  When he was 12 he started to take part in festivals and competitions and in December 2007 he reached the finals of the Premio Nave Punica, winning third place among competitors of all ages.  The following year he won the 11th Festival della Canzone di Custonaci singing Il mare calmo della sera. In December, when he had turned 13, he won the third edition of the Premio Nave Punica.  Read more…

_____________________________________

Book of the Day: Sublime Ideas: Drawings by Giovanni Battista Piranesi, by John Marciari

This beautiful publication accompanied an exhibition at the Morgan Library & Museum of the work of Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720–1778). It is the most important study of Piranesi’s drawings to appear in more than a generation. In a letter written near the end of his life, Giovanni Battista Piranesi explained to his sister that he had lived away from his native Venice because he could find no patrons there willing to support “the sublimity of my ideas.” He resided instead in Rome, where he became internationally famous working as a printmaker, designer, architect, archaeologist, theorist, dealer, and polemicist. While Piranesi’s lasting fame is based above all on his etchings, he was also an intense, accomplished, and versatile draftsman, and much of his work was first developed in vigorous drawings.  The Morgan Library & Museum holds what is arguably the largest and most important collection of these works, more than 100 drawings that include early architectural caprices, studies for prints, measured design drawings, sketches for a range of decorative objects, a variety of figural drawings, and views of Rome and Pompeii. These works form the core of the book. More than merely an exhibition catalogue or a study of the Morgan’s Piranesi holdings, however, Sublime Ideas is a monograph that offers a complete survey of Piranesi’s work as a draftsman.  The most comprehensive study of Piranesi’s drawings to appear in more than a generation, the book includes more than 200 illustrations. 

John Marciari is the Charles W Engelhard Curator of Drawings and Prints and Curatorial Chair at the Morgan Library & Museum, New York City.

Buy from Amazon

Home

3 October

Eleonora Duse – actress

Performer 'became' the person she played with her whole being

Regarded as one of the greatest acting talents of all times, Eleonora Duse was born on this day in 1858 in Vigevano in Lombardy.  Often simply known as Duse, she was admired for her total assumption of the roles she played. In 1947, the film, Eleonora Duse, was made about her life.  She began acting at the age of four, joining her father and grandfather in the profession. She worked in a troupe with her family, travelling from city to city. Duse became famous for creating Italian versions of roles made famous by the actor Sarah Bernhardt.  Duse toured South America, Russia and the US, beginning the tours as an unknown actor, but leaving in her wake a general recognition of her genius.  She had an affair with the Italian poet, Arrigo Boito, who was the librettist for the composer, Giuseppe Verdi.  They carried out their relationship in a clandestine manner, but the letters they exchanged have survived and they remained on good terms until Boito’s death in 1918.  In 1895 Duse met the writer Gabriele D’Annunzio and they became involved romantically as well as professionally.  D’Annunzio wrote four plays for her but when he gave the lead in La città morta to Bernhardt instead of her, Duse ended her relationship with him.  Read more…

________________________________________

Francesco Bianchini - jockey

19th century rider who contested Palio di Siena 55 times

The jockey Francesco Bianchini, who holds the record for the most consecutive participations in the historic Palio di Siena horse race, was born on this day in 1808 in Siena.  Bianchini, who raced under the name of Campanino, rode in 44 editions of the famous event, in which horses and riders represent 10 of the city of Siena’s 17 contrade or districts, without missing one between his debut in 1827 and the second running of the twice-yearly race in 1847. He rode in 55 editions in total before he retired for good in 1860, at the age of 51, chalking up a total of nine wins. In his career, he rode for all bar two of the 17 contrade.  Held in July and again in August every summer in the mediaeval square at the centre of Siena, the Piazza del Campo, with occasionally an extra race to commemorate a special event or anniversary, the Palio can be a brutal affair.  The 10 participants in the bareback contest race each other on a temporary dirt track around the perimeter of the shell-shaped piazza. The race consists of three laps, which the horses cover at such a furious pace that the whole thing is over in about 90 seconds.  Read more…

______________________________________

Alessandro Mazzinghi - boxing champion

Tuscan fighter held world title twice

The boxer Alessandro 'Sandro' Mazzinghi, who won the world light middleweight championship twice in his 64-fight career, was born on this day in 1938 in Pontedera in Tuscany.  Mazzinghi won the title for the first time at the Velodromo Vigorelli in Milan in September 1963, defeating the American Ralph Dupas, defending his title successfully in a rematch in Sydney, Australia in December of the same year.  He lost the crown to fellow Italian Nino Benvenuti in 1965 at the San Siro football stadium in Milan but regained it at the same venue in May 1968, defeating  the South Korean Ki-Soo.  He did so after recovering from an horrific car crash in January 1964 that claimed the life of his young wife, Vera, only 12 days after they were married.  The couple had been on their way home to Pontedera from a gala dinner in Montecatini Terme in Tuscany when their car slid off a muddy road in heavy rain and collided with a tree.  Vera was killed instantly and Mazzinghi, who was thrown from the car, suffered a fractured skull.  He was in a critical condition for several days but recovered. Amazingly, he was back in the ring within weeks.  Read more…

______________________________________

Ruggero Raimondi - opera star

Singer overcame shyness to become a great bass-baritone

The bass-baritone singer Ruggero Raimondi, who would become famous for his performances in the operas of Verdi, Rossini, Puccini and Mozart, was born on this day in Bologna in 1941.  Blessed with a mature voice at an early age, he was soon encouraged to pursue a career in opera and enrolled at the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory in Milan at the age of only 16, later continuing his studies in Rome at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia.  He won a national competition for young singers in Spoleto and made his debut in the same Umbrian city in 1964 in the role of Colline in Giacomo Puccini's La bohème in 1964. Soon afterwards, he appeared in the leading role of Procida in Verdi’s I vespri siciliani at the Rome Opera House.  Raimondi was also studying accountancy, wary that his ambitions in opera might not materialise.  But then came an audition at La Fenice opera house in Venice, after which Raimondi was offered a five-year contract.  Naturally shy, he struggled with the acting element to operas but was able to conquer his inhibitions with the help of acting lessons and work with a vocal coach who taught him interpretation.  Read more…

_____________________________________

Book of the Day:  Eleonora Duse: A Biography, by Helen Sheehy 

Eleonora Duse: A Biography, the first in two decades, tells the story of the legendary actress who inspired Anton Chekhov, popularized Henrik Ibsen, and spurred Stanislavski to create a new theory of acting based on her art and to invoke her name at every rehearsal.  Writers loved her and wrote plays for her. She befriended Rainer Maria Rilke and inspired the young James Joyce, who kept a portrait of her on his desk. Her greatest love, the poet Gabriele D’Annunzio, made her the heroine of his novel Il fuoco (The Flame). She radically changed the art of acting: in a duel between the past and the future, she vanquished her rival, Sarah Bernhardt.  When asked about her acting, Duse responded that, quite simply, it came from life. Except for one short film, Duse’s art has been lost. Despite dozens of books about her, her story is muffled by legend and myth. The sentimental image that prevails is of a misty, tragic heroine victimized by men, by life; an artist of unearthly purity, without ambition.  Now Helen Sheehy gives us a different Duse. Drawing on newly-discovered material, including Duse’s own memoir, and unpublished letters and notes, Sheehy brings us to an understanding of the great actress’s unique ways of working: Duse acting out of her sense of her character’s inner life, Duse anticipating the bold aspects of modernism and performing with a sexual freedom that shocked and thrilled audiences. Sheehy writes about the Duse that the actress herself tried to hide, tracing her life from her childhood as a performing member of a family of touring actors. We follow her through her 20s and through the next four decades of commissioning and directing plays, running her own company, and illuminating a series of great roles. 

Helen Sheehy is the author of Eva Le Gallienne: A Biography; Margo: The Life and Theatre of Margo Jones; and All About Theatre. She lives in Hamden, Connecticut.

Buy from Amazon

Home

2 October

NEW - Nino Bixio – soldier and politician

Patriotic general helped to unify Italy

A leading personality during the unification of Italy, Nino Bixio was born Gerolamo Bixio on this day in 1821 in Genoa.  Bixio helped to organise Giuseppe Garibaldi’s Expedition of the Thousand in 1860 against the Kingdom of the two Sicilies, and he took part in the capture of Rome in 1870, which completed the unification process for Italy.  Bixio’s parents had made him join the navy of the Kingdom of Sardinia while he was still a boy and he travelled abroad on his ship. When he returned to Italy in 1846, he joined Giovine Italia, a political movement founded by Giuseppe Mazzini, who had written to Charles Albert, King of Sardinia, asking him to unite and lead Italy.  The following year in Genoa, Bixio is said to have seized the bridle of Charles Albert’s horse and cried out: “Pass the Ticino, Sire, and we are all with you” - a reference to the Ticino river, which his army would have to cross in order to drive out the Austrians in northern Italy.  Bixio fought during the wave of revolution that swept through Europe in 1848 and, while serving under Garibaldi in 1849 in Rome, he took an entire battalion of French soldiers as prisoners, winning a gold medal for valour.  Read more…

______________________________________

Saint Charles Borromeo

Great reformer earned appreciation after his death

Charles (Carlo) Borromeo, a leading Catholic figure who led the movement to combat the spread of Protestantism, was born on this day in Milan in 1538.  Part of the noble Borromeo family, he became a Cardinal and brought in many reforms to benefit the Church, which made him unpopular at the time. But he was held in high regard after his death and was quickly made a saint by Pope Paul V.  Borromeo was born at the Castle of Arona on Lake Maggiore, near Milan. His father was Count of Arona and his mother was part of the Medici family.  He was educated in civil and canon law at the University of Pavia.  When his uncle, Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Medici became Pope Pius IV in 1559, Borromeo was brought to Rome and given a post in the Vatican.  The following year the Pope made him a Cardinal and asked him to supervise the Franciscans, Carmelites and Knights of Malta and organise the last session of the Council of Trent, which was being held in Trento to reform the Church and counter the spread of Protestantism.  The Council issued a long list of decrees covering disputed aspects of the Catholic religion as well as denouncing what it considered to be heresies committed in the name of Protestantism.  Read more…

______________________________________

Joe Profaci - Mafia boss

Sicilian who influenced profile of Mario Puzo’s Godfather

The Mafia boss Giuseppe ‘Joe’ Profaci, one of the real-life gangsters who influenced the author Mario Puzo as he created the character of his fictional mob boss Vito Corleone in The Godfather, was born in Villabate in Sicily on this day in 1897.  It was after studying Profaci’s crime career that Puzo decided that Corleone, who is thought to have been based largely on one of Profaci's fellow mob bosses, Carlo Gambino, should hide his criminal activities behind his ‘legitimate’ identity as an olive oil importer, mirroring what Profaci did in real life in New York.  Profaci is believed to have started importing olive oil before he became heavily involved in crime but chose to keep the business going as one of a network of legitimate companies, so that he could mask the proceeds of his crime empire and satisfy the authorities that he was paying his taxes.  In fact, the olive oil business became a hugely lucrative concern, particularly when shortages in the Second World War enabled him to sell the product at premium prices. The irony of Profaci’s criminal life was that his legitimate companies, of which he had as many as 20, actually provided work for hundreds of New Yorkers.  Read more…

______________________________________

Antonio Di Pietro – magistrate and politician

Former policeman who led mani pulite corruption investigations

The politician and former magistrate Antonio Di Pietro, who uncovered wide-ranging corruption in the Italian government in a scandal that changed the landscape of Italian politics, was born on this day in 1950 in Molise.  Di Pietro was the lead prosecutor in the so-called mani pulite trials in the early 1990s, which led to many politicians and businessmen being indicted and to the collapse of the traditional Socialist and Christian Democratic parties.  The Christian Democrats had been the dominant force in Italian politics since the formation of the Italian Republic at the end of the Second World War but after several high-profile arrests and resignations and poor results in the 1992 general election and 1993 local elections the party was disbanded in 1994.  The Italian Socialist Party was dissolved in the same year following the resignation of party secretary and former prime minister Bettino Craxi, who was the most high-profile casualty in the corruption scandal. It was also known as tangentopoli, which can be roughly translated as “Bribesville”.  Di Pietro was born into a poor rural family in Montenero di Bisaccia, a hill town in the province of Campobasso in the Molise region.  Read more…

______________________________________

Book of the Day: Garibaldi: Citizen of the World: A Biography, by Alfonso Scirocco

What adventure novelist could have invented the life of Giuseppe Garibaldi? The revolutionary, soldier, politician, and greatest figure in the fight for Italian unification, Garibaldi (1807-1882) brought off almost as many dramatic exploits in the Americas as he did in Europe, becoming an international freedom fighter, earning the title of the "hero of two worlds," and making himself perhaps the most famous and beloved man of his century. Alfonso Scirocco's Garibaldi: Citizen of the World is the most up-to-date, authoritative, comprehensive, and convincing biography of Garibaldi yet written. In vivid narrative style and unprecedented detail, and drawing on many new sources that shed fresh light on important events, Scirocco tells the full story of Garibaldi's fascinating public and private life, separating its myth-like reality from the outright myths.  Scirocco tells how Garibaldi devoted his energies to the liberation of Italians and other oppressed peoples. Sentenced to death for his role in an abortive Genoese insurrection in 1834, Garibaldi fled to South America, where he joined two successive fights for independence - Rio Grande do Sul's against Brazil and Uruguay's against Argentina. He returned to Italy in 1848 to again fight for Italian independence, leading seven more campaigns, including the spectacular capture of Sicily. During the American Civil War, Abraham Lincoln even offered to make him a general in the Union army.  Presenting Garibaldi as a complex and even contradictory figure, Scirocco shows us the pacifist who spent much of his life fighting; the nationalist who advocated European unification; the republican who served a king; and the man who, although compared by contemporaries to Aeneas and Odysseus, refused honours and wealth and spent his last years as a farmer.

Alfonso Scirocco was an Italian historian, professor emeritus of the University of Naples Federico II. He was a member of the presidential council of the Institute for the History of the Italian Risorgimento.

Buy from Amazon

Home

Nino Bixio – soldier and politician

Patriotic general helped to unify Italy

Nino Bixio helped Garibaldi organise
his Expedition of the Thousand in 1860

A leading personality during the unification of Italy, Nino Bixio was born Gerolamo Bixio on this day in 1821 in Genoa.

Bixio helped to organise Giuseppe Garibaldi’s Expedition of the Thousand in 1860 against the Kingdom of the two Sicilies, and he took part in the capture of Rome in 1870, which completed the unification process for Italy.

Bixio’s parents had made him join the navy of the Kingdom of Sardinia while he was still a boy and he travelled abroad on his ship. When he returned to Italy in 1846, he joined Giovine Italia, a political movement founded by Giuseppe Mazzini, who had written to Charles Albert, King of Sardinia, asking him to unite and lead Italy.

The following year in Genoa, Bixio is said to have seized the bridle of Charles Albert’s horse and cried out: “Pass the Ticino, Sire, and we are all with you" - a reference to the Ticino river, which his army would have to cross in order to drive out the Austrians in northern Italy.

Bixio fought during the wave of revolution that swept through Europe in 1848 and, while serving under Garibaldi in 1849 in Rome, he took an entire battalion of French soldiers as prisoners, winning a gold medal for valour. 

During Garibaldi’s Sicilian campaign, Bixio contributed to his victory at the Battle of Calatafimi. After some of the peasants revolted against Garibaldi in a village in the province of Catania, Bixio was sent to the area to restore order. Among the 16 people killed had been two children and a priest and the town’s theatre and archives were set on fire by the peasants.

Bixio led a division of troops in
the capture of Rome in 1870

With two battalions of red shirts, Bixio besieged and successfully secured the village.  Bixio organised a military court, which found 150 people guilty and sentenced five of them to death.

After arriving with Garibaldi’s men in Reggio Calabria later that year, Bixio took part in the Battle of Volturno, during which he suffered a broken leg.

He ignored the Austrians when they demanded an Italian surrender after his men were forced to retreat in the Battle of Custoza in 1866.

In 1870, Bixio was given command of a division during the movement against Rome and his men took Civitavecchia. On 20 September they participated in the capture of Rome, which completed Italian unification. His division entered Rome through Porta Pancrazio. There is a bust of General Nino Bixio in the Gianicolo, a hill near Porta Pancrazio in Rome where Garibaldi and his famous soldiers are remembered. 

After Bixio became involved in politics and was appointed a deputy in 1861, he attempted to heal the rift between Cavour and Garibaldi and he was appointed as a senator in 1870.

Nino Bixio died of cholera in 1873 in Sumatra. He had been on his way to Batavia, now known as Jakarta, to take command of a commercial expedition. The exact location of his grave is not known, although local people said he had been buried on the beach. 

In 1876 a small military expedition was sent to try to pinpoint the exact spot where he was buried but the exercise ended in disaster when several of the soldiers were brutally killed by some members of the indigenous population.

Three years later his remains were at last traced and they were taken to be cremated under the supervision of the Italian consul in Singapore. They were transported to Genoa in 1877 and interred in the Cimitero di Staglieno in the city.

The huge Cimitero di Staglieno as it looked
when Bixio's remains were buried there

Travel tip:

The Cimitero Monumentale di Staglieno is one of the largest cemeteries in Europe and is famous for its monumental sculpture. The extensive cemetery is located on a hillside in the district of Staglieno in Genoa and covers an area of more than a square kilometre, As well as being the final resting place of Nino Bixio, the cemetery houses the grave of Giuseppe Mazzini, the spearhead of the Italian revolutionary movement who inspired Bixio to fight for the cause of the Risorgimento.

The Porta Pancrazio, where Nino Bixio led his
troops as they entered Rome in 1870

Travel tip:

Porta Pia and Porta Pancrazio are gates through which soldiers entered Rome in 1870 and were finally able to unite Italy in the name of Vittorio Emanuele II. Rome had remained under French control even after the first Italian parliament had proclaimed Victor Emanuel of Savoy the King of Italy, despite repeated events by nationalists to liberate it. But after the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war, Napoleon III withdrew some of his troops. Italian soldiers seized their chance and after a brief bombardment were able to enter Rome through a breach in the walls at Porta Pia. At the same time, the troops of Nino Bixio entered through Porta Pancrazio. Victor Emanuel II took up residence in the Quirinale Palace and Italy was declared officially united. 

Also on this day:

1588: The birth of Saint Charles Borromeo

1897: The birth of Mafia boss Joe Profaci

1950: The birth of politician and magistrate Antonio Di Pietro

Home

 

1 October

Attilio Pavesi - Olympic cycling champion

Rider from Emilia-Romagna won Italy's first road racing gold 

Attilio Pavesi, the first winner of an individual Olympic gold medal in Italian cycling history, was born on this day in 1910 in the small town of Caorso in Emilia-Romagna.  At the Los Angeles Olympics of 1932, Pavesi won the individual road race and picked up a second gold medal as a member of the Italian quartet that won the team classification in the same race.  Italy had already won gold medals for the team pursuit in track cycling - indeed, they won that title for the fourth time in a row in 1932 - but had not enjoyed success on the road before Pavesi's triumph.  Pavesi, the last of 11 children born to Angelo, a poultry farmer, and his wife Maria, was a natural all-round sportsman, excelling at running, long jump, swimming, diving, gymnastics and football as he grew up.  He was such a strong swimmer he once saved a boy from drowning in a local river by pulling him to the bank by his hair.  His interest in cycling developed after he left school at the age of 10 to take a job in a workshop, learning how to repair all modes of transport from bicycles to tractors.  He joined a cycling team and won a number of trophies and continued to compete during his national service.  Read more…

______________________________________

Leonello d’Este - Marquis of Ferrara

Ruler who spent money on the arts and education

Leonello d’Este, who is remembered as a dedicated patron of the arts, literature and culture, died on this day in 1450 in Ferrara.  Leonello was Marquis of Ferrara and Duke of Modena and Reggio Emilia from 1441 to 1450.  An illegitimate son of Niccolo III d’Este, Leonello was favoured by his father as his successor ahead of his legitimate children.  As he was well educated and popular with the common people, he was considered by his father to be the most suitable heir.  During his rule over Ferrara, Leonello transformed the city and reformed the University of Ferrara, actions which influenced the political and artistic achievements of his successors.  Leonello was tutored by Guarino Veronese, who instructed him on the traits of a desirable ruler and how to govern. Veronese was later appointed as a professor at the University of Ferrara.  Because of his strong academic background, Leonello made economic, political and cultural changes to Ferrara as soon as he took over. He was responsible for the building of the first hospital in Ferrara.  Artists such as Pisanello, Bellini, Mantegna and Della Francesca worked for him in Ferrara.  Read more…

_______________________________________

Sylvano Bussotti – composer, opera director and writer

Renaissance man with many strings to his bow

The multi-talented Sylvano Bussotti, a leading composer who was part of Italy’s avant-garde movement, was born on this day in 1931 in Florence.  Bussotti was also a painter, set and costume designer, opera director and writer. His operas and ballets were performed at the most prestigious theatres in Italy and abroad and he served as artistic director of La Fenice in Venice, the Puccini festival in Tuscany and the music section of the Venice Biennale.  Before he was five years old, Bussotti was learning to play the violin and he soon became a prodigy. He was also introduced to painting early in his life by his older brother and uncle.  At the Luigi Cherubini Conservatory in Florence, he studied harmony and counterpoint and learnt the piano, but he was unable to complete his studies and receive any official qualifications because of the start of World War II.  However, Bussotti continued to study composition on his own and, from 1958, he took private composition lessons with Max Deutsch in Paris.  Bussotti embarked on what has been described as an important editorial relationship with music publishers Casa Ricordi in 1956.  Read more…

______________________________________

Walter Mazzarri - football coach

Former Watford manager with outstanding record in Italy

The football coach Walter Mazzarri, whose disappointing spell in English football as Watford manager contrasts with a fine record as a coach in his native Italy, was born on this day in 1961 in San Vincenzo, a resort on the coast of Tuscany.  Mazzarri won promotion to Serie A with his local club Livorno and kept tiny Calabrian team Reggina in Serie A against the odds for three consecutive seasons, on the last occasion despite an 11-point deduction for involvement in an alleged match-fixing scandal.  He subsequently had two seasons as coach of Sampdoria, qualifying for the UEFA Cup by finishing sixth in the first of those campaigns and then reaching the final of the Coppa Italia with a team that included the potent attacking duo Antonio Cassano and Giampaolo Pazzini.  After that he returned to Napoli, where he had previously been assistant to Renzo Ulivieri, to be appointed head coach in 2009, guiding the azzurri to sixth place - their best Serie A finish for 25 years - to qualify for the Europa League in his first season in charge, and doing even better in his second season, when Napoli were third, their highest placing since the golden days of the late 1980s.  Read more…

___________________________________

Book of the Day: Pedalare! Pedalare! A History of Italian Cycling, by John Foot

Cycling was a sport so important in Italy that it marked a generation, sparked fears of civil war, changed the way Italian was spoken and led to legal reform. It was a sport so popular that it created the geography of Italy in the minds of her citizens, and some have said that it was cycling, not political change, that united Italy.  Pedalare! Pedalare! is the first complete history of Italian cycling to be published in English. The book moves chronologically from the first Giro d'Italia (Italy's equivalent of the Tour de France) in 1909 to the 21st century. The tragedies and triumphs of great riders such as Fausto Coppi and Gino Bartali appear alongside stories of the support riders, snow-bound mountains and the first and only woman to ride the whole Giro.  Cycling's relationship with Italian history, politics and culture is always up front, with reference to fascism, the cold war and the effect of two world wars. The sport is explored alongside changes in Italian society as a whole, from the poor peasants who took up cycling in the early, pioneering period, to the slick, professional sport of today. Scandals and controversy appear throughout the book as constant features of the connection between fans, journalists and cycling.

John Foot is an English academic historian specialising in Italy. He is the author of several books, including histories of Italian football, Italian cylcling and the story of the pioneering psychiatrist, Franco Basaglia, who led a revolution in mental health care in Italy. 

Buy from Amazon

Home

30 September

Angelo Cerica - Carabinieri general

First job was to arrest Mussolini

General Angelo Cerica, the police commander tasked with arresting the Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini after he was deposed as party leader in 1943, was born on this day in 1885 in Alatri, in the Ciociaria region of Lazio, about 90km (56 miles) south of Rome.  Mussolini was arrested on July 25 as he left his regular meeting with the King, Vittorio Emanuele III, the day after the Fascist Grand Council had voted to remove him from power.  The monarch had informed him that General Pietro Badoglio, former chief of staff of the Italian army, would be replacing him as prime minister.  Cerica had been appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Carabinieri, Italy’s paramilitary second police force, only two days previously, succeeding General Azolino Hazon, who had been killed in a bombing raid.  He was hand-picked for the job by General Vittorio Ambrosio, who was party to a secret plot among Carabinieri officers to depose Mussolini irrespective of the Grand Council vote.  They wanted a commander who would not oppose the anti-Mussolini faction and would carry out the arrest.  Cerica, in fact, shared their view of il Duce, blaming him for leading Italy into a ruinous alliance with Germany.  Read more…

_______________________________________

Massimo Bottura - chef and food activist

Leading restaurateur who set up project to feed hungry

The chef and restaurateur Massimo Bottura, whose Osteria Francescana in his hometown of Modena has twice been named as the world’s best restaurant, was born on this day in 1962.  Bottura is also the founder, in partnership with his American-born wife, the former actress and artist Lara Gilmore, of Food for Soul, a non-profit organisation that sets out to combat waste and feed the hungry through a network of refectories in major cities around the world.  The Food for Soul project was launched in 2015 with a refettorio in Greco, a poor district of northern Milan, and has expanded to the extent that it now numbers seven similar dining rooms for the hungry and homeless, in London, Paris and Rio de Janeiro as well as at three other locations in Italy.  As a young man, Bottura’s passions were food and football. He drew inspiration from the cooking of his mother and grandmothers in his dream of being a chef but envisioned a career as a footballer first, believing he had the talent to play professionally.  His father, a successful businessman, insisted he followed a different path, and Bottura enrolled instead to study law at university.   Read more…

_______________________________________

Pierina Legnani - ballerina

Italian dancer who conquered St Petersburg

The ballerina Pierina Legnani, considered by many ballet historians to be one of the greatest dancers in history, was born on this day in 1863 in Milan.  Legnani's legacy was the 32-turn fouetté en tournant in which the dancer essentially spins on the point of one foot for 32 revolutions while maintaining perfect balance.  No ballerina had completed 32 turns before Legnani, who is said to have tried it out at the Alhambra Theatre in London before introducing the move to the wider world in 1893 on her debut at the Imperial Ballet in St Petersburg in Russia, where she was performing in the title role of Cinderella.  It came in the final act on the night of the premiere and her perfection of technique and execution caused a sensation, with many critics hailing her as the supreme ballerina of her generation.  Her feat set a new standard for future ballerinas as a yardstick of strength and technique. A sequence of 32 fouetté turns was later choreographed into the Black Swan solo in Act Three of Swan Lake, of which it continues to be a feature.  Jealous rivals criticised Legnani for what they saw as showing off, taking an audacious gamble that could have backfired horribly.  Read more…

______________________________________

Monica Bellucci - actress and model

Movie actress who became face of Dolce & Gabbana

The actress and model Monica Bellucci, who has appeared in more than 60 films in a career that began in 1990, was born on this day in 1964 in Città di Castello in Umbria.  Bellucci, who is associated with Dolce & Gabbana and Dior perfumes, began modelling to help fund her studies at the University of Perugia, where she was enrolled at the Faculty of Law with ambitions of a career in the legal profession.  But she was quickly brought to the attention of the major model agencies in Milan and soon realised she had the potential to follow a much different career.  Bellucci, whose father Pasquale worked for a transport company, soon began to attract big-name clients in Paris and New York as well as Italy, but decided not long into her modelling career that she would take acting lessons.  She claimed to have been inspired by watching the Italian female movie icons Claudia Cardinale and Sophia Loren and gained her first part in a TV miniseries directed by the veteran director Dino Risi in 1990.  The following year she made her big screen debut with a leading role in the film La raffa, directed by Francesco Laudadio.  Read more…

______________________________________

Girolamo Mercuriale – physician

Doctor went from hero to villain and back again

Girolamo Mercuriale, who is believed to have written the first book about sports medicine and one of the first books about the benefits of physical exercise, was born on this day in 1530 in Forlì.  He published his most famous book, De Arte Gymnastica, in 1569 in Venice, having studied Greek and Roman medical literature and learnt about the attitude of athletes in ancient times to diet, exercise and hygiene.  Girolamo was the son of a doctor, Giovanni Mercuriale, and he was sent to Bologna, Padua and Venice to study medicine. After receiving his doctorate in philosophy and medicine in 1555 in Venice he went to Rome on a political mission, where he had access to many of the important libraries housing classical manuscripts.  His book is believed to be the first to explain the principles of physical therapy, now known as physiotherapy and the first to suggest that exercise can be helpful, or harmful, depending on its use, duration and intensity.  He became famous and was offered the chair of practical medicine at Padua in 1569, where he studied the works of Hippocrates, which gave him the material to write the first scientific tracts on skin disease, and women’s and children’s diseases.  Read more…

____________________________________

Book of the Day: Fascist Voices: An Intimate History of Mussolini's Italy, by Christopher Duggan

Fascist Voices - winner of the Wolfson History Prize - is a fresh and disturbing look at a country in thrall to a charismatic dictator. Tracing fascism from its conception to its legacy, Christopher Duggan unpicks why the regime enjoyed so much support among the majority of the Italian people. He examines the extraordinary hold the Duce had on Italy and how he came to embody Fascism.  By making use of rarely examined sources, such as letters and diaries, newspaper reports, secret police files, popular songs and radio broadcasts, Duggan explores how ordinary people experienced Fascism on a daily basis; how its ideology influenced politics, religion and everyday life to the extent that Mussolini's legacy still lingers in Italy today.

Christopher Duggan was a distinguished scholar of the history of Italy in the 19th and 20th centuries. Professor of Italian History at Reading University, he wrote a number of highly commended books on modern Italian history, including Fascism and the Mafia, A Concise History of Italy, Francesco Crispi: From Nation to Nationalism and The Force of Destiny: a History of Italy Since 1796.

Buy from Amazon

Home

29 September

Enrico Fermi – nuclear physicist

Scientist from Rome who created world’s first nuclear reactor

Enrico Fermi, who has been called the architect of the nuclear age and even the father of the atomic bomb, was born on this day in 1901 in Rome.  Fermi, who won a Nobel Prize in 1938, created the world’s first nuclear reactor, the so-called Chicago Pile-1, after he had settled in the United States, and also worked on the Manhattan Project, which was the code name for the secret US research project aimed at developing nuclear weapons in the Second World War.  The third child of Alberto Fermi, an official in Italy’s Ministry of Railways, and Ida de Gattis, a school teacher, Fermi took an interest in science from an early age, inspired by a book about physics he had discovered in the local market in Campo de’ Fiori in Rome, written in Latin by a Jesuit priest in about 1840.  He read avidly as he was growing up, conducting many experiments. After high school, he was granted a place at the prestigious Scuola Normale Superiore, part of the University of Pisa, where it became clear the depth of knowledge he had already acquired was greater than that of many of his professors. It was not long before they began asking him to organise seminars in quantum physics. He graduated with honours in 1922.  Read more…

______________________________________

Silvio Piola - footballer

Modest star who remains Italy’s greatest goalscorer

Silvio Piola, a forward whose career tally of 364 goals between 1930 and 1954 remains the most scored by any professional player in the history of football in Italy, was born on this day in 1913 in Robbio Lomellina, a small town about 50km (31 miles) southwest of Milan.  Of those goals, 274 were scored in Serie A and 30 for the Italian national team, with whom he was a World Cup winner in 1938, scoring twice in the final against Hungary.  No other player has scored so many goals in the top flight of Italian football and only two others - Gigi Riva and Giuseppe Meazza - have scored more while wearing the azzurri shirt.  Other records still held by Piola include all-time highest Serie A goalscorer for three different clubs - his hometown club Pro Vercelli, Lazio, and Novara - and one of only two players to have scored six goals in a single match.  Until recently, Piola held a unique double record of being both the youngest player to score two goals in a Serie A match and the oldest, having scored twice for Pro Vercelli in a 5-4 win away to Alessandria in 1931 when he was 17 years and 104 days and twice for Novara against Lazio in a match in 1953, at the age of 39 years and 127 days.  Read more…

_______________________________________

Silvio Berlusconi - entrepreneur and politician

Businessman who was four times PM

Silvio Berlusconi, who has served as prime minister of Italy in four Governments, was born on this day in 1936 in Milan.  Head of a large media empire and owner of the football club AC Milan, Berlusconi was prime minister for a total of nine years, making him the longest-serving post-war prime minister and the third longest-serving since Italian unification.  Berlusconi was the eldest of three children born to a bank employee and his wife and, after completing his secondary school education, he studied Law at the Università Statale in Milan, graduating with honours in 1961.  While at University he played the double bass in a group and occasionally performed as a cruise ship crooner. In later life he was to co-write both AC Milan’s and Forza Italia’s anthems and, in collaboration with Mariano Apicella, a Neapolitan singer and musician, he wrote the lyrics for two albums of Neapolitan-style songs, which Apicella put to music.  In the late 1960s, Berlusconi’s company, Edilnord, built 4,000 residential apartments in a new 'town' he called Milano Due and he was able to use the profits to fund his future businesses.  Read more…

_____________________________________

Giorgio Frassineti - politician

Mayor who proposed museum of Fascism

Giorgio Frassineti, the politician famous for proposing a museum dedicated to Fascism in Predappio, the birthplace of Benito Mussolini, was born on this day in 1964 in Forlì in Emilia-Romagna.  A member of the centre-left Partito Democratico, Frassineti served as mayor of Predappio from 2009 to 2019.  Predappio, around 18km (11 miles) south of Forlì, has a population of less than 6,500 and is not on the tourist trail.  Apart from by private car, it is accessible only by bus from Forlì, which is a pleasant small city but one that tourists mainly pass through on the way to Rimini and the Adriatic coast.  Yet 50,000 visitors a year descend on Predappio, mainly to visit the house where Mussolini was born in 1883, or the family mausoleum where his body was laid to rest following his execution by Italian partisans in 1945. Despite his World War Two alliance with the Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, Mussolini is still admired by some Italians and Predappio’s main street has shops that openly sell Fascist memorabilia, in part a cynical exploitation of the village’s evolution as a place of pilgrimage for Mussolini supporters, but in part also a reflection of the country’s more ambivalent attitude towards his memory.  Read more…

_______________________________________

Book of the Day: The Last Man Who Knew Everything: The Life and Times of Enrico Fermi, Father of the Nuclear Age, by David N Schwartz

In 1942, a team at the University of Chicago achieved what no one had before: a nuclear chain reaction. At the forefront of this breakthrough stood Enrico Fermi. Straddling the ages of classical physics and quantum mechanics, equally at ease with theory and experiment, Fermi truly was the last man who knew everything-at least about physics. But he was also a complex figure who was a part of both the Italian Fascist Party and the Manhattan Project, and a less-than-ideal father and husband who nevertheless remained one of history's greatest mentors. Based on new archival material and exclusive interviews, The Last Man Who Knew Everything lays bare the enigmatic life of a colossus of twentieth century physics.

David N Schwartz has worked at the US Department of State, the Brookings Institution, and Goldman Sachs in both London and New York. He has published widely on US strategic nuclear weapons policy, NATO, and foreign policy. His father, Melvin Schwartz, shared the 1988 Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery of the muon neutrino.

Buy from Amazon

Home