Renata Viganò - writer and partisan

Resistance-inspired novel hailed as masterpiece

Renata Viganò's later writing career was
coloured by her time in the Resistance

The writer and partisan Renata Viganò, whose 1949 novel L’Agnese va a morire - Agnes Goes to Die - was considered a masterpiece among literary works inspired by the heroics of the Italian Resistance movement in World War Two, died on this day in 1976 in her home city of Bologna.

L’Agnese va a morire, Viganò’s second novel, won the Viareggio Prize, a prestigious literary award, and was translated into 14 languages and subsequently turned into a film.

Viganò, who had volumes of poetry published as a teenager and became a prolific contributor to the news and editorial pages of a number of newspapers, wrote L’Agnese va a morire from the viewpoint of a newspaper reporter, which placed it in the neorealist genre that became popular with film-makers in the postwar years.

Born in Bologna in 1900, Viganò’s father, Eugenio, was a socialist from Reggio Emilia but ran his own business. Her mother, Amelia, hailed from a wealthy family and they were initially comfortably off. 

A talented writer from a young age, she had volumes of poetry published at the ages of 13 and 16 and went to a classical liceo - high school - with dreams of becoming a doctor.

However, the economic consequences of Italy’s involvement in the First World War caused Eugenio’s business to collapse. With the family suddenly poor, Renata had to give up high school in order to contribute to the household’s income, finding work in local hospitals, first as a janitor but eventually as a nurse.

Viganò with her husband, Antonio Meluschi,
with whom she shared her wartime experience

She continued to write. Her first novel was published in 1933 and her involvement in literary circles in Bologna led her to meet another writer, Antonio Meluschi. They married in 1937 and their home - at via Mascarella 63 -  became a meeting point for writers and intellectuals, including Pier Paolo Pasolini, Luciano Serra, Enzo Biagi, Giorgio Bassani and Achille Ardigò.

As World War Two began, her politics became increasingly influenced by the left and with Italy’s formal surrender to the Allies in 1943 she and her husband decided to take a more active role in fighting fascism by joining the Resistance movement.

Under the name of Contessa, she was a courier and nurse in a partisan brigade commanded by Meluschi, first in Romagna and then in the wetlands and lagoons of the Valli di Comacchio, where she directed what could be described as a partisans' health service. 

Unlike many of their fellow fighters, Viganò and her husband survived the war and it was soon afterwards that she began working on L’Agnese va a morire.

Heavily autobiographical, set in the Valli di Comacchio during the eight months of German occupation of Italy that preceded the country’s liberation, the protagonist is Agnese, a middle-aged washerwoman, who responds to the death of her husband, Palita, at the hands of the Germans, by beginning to collaborate with the partisans as a liaison officer.

The novel came to the attention of Natalia Ginzburg, herself destined to become an award-winning writer, who was then an editor at Einaudi, and was identified by the renowned literary critic Maria Corti as one of the finest works on the Resistance. 

Viganò in later life; she invariably had
a cat for company as she worked

In 1976, L'Agnese va a morire was made into a film, released internationally under the title of And Agnese Goes to Die, directed by Giuliano Montaldo, with a screenplay by Nicola Badalucco and Giuliano Montaldo and music by Ennio Morricone. It starred Ingrid Thulin in the role of Agnese and Massimo Girotti in that of Palita, with a cast that also included Michele Placido and Aurore Clement. Sadly, Viganò died shortly before the film was released

Among Viganò's subsequent works were other books on the battle for Italy’s freedom, including Donne della Resistenza (1955) and Matrimonio in brigata (1976).

She also established herself in the years after the war as one of Italy’s most incisive voices during the country’s reconstruction, her contributions from the pages of l'Unità, the official Communist Party newspaper, reaching a wide audience of not only women. 

Two months before her death at the age of 75, she was recognised by the city of Bologna for her contribution to journalism.

Bologna dedicated a garden to her with a small monument in the Savena district, while the municipalities of San Lazzaro, Pontecchio and Ferrara named streets after her.

The marshes of the Valli di Comacchio are
attractive to walkers and birdwatchers

Travel tip:

The marshes of the Valli di Comacchio, while reduced in size by land reclamation in recent years, are still one of the largest lagoon systems in Italy. They cover an area of more than 11,000 hectares between Comacchio and the river Reno and are connected to the sea via canals. They form an environment of rare beauty within the Po Delta Park, the stretches of water in some places divided by embankments and ancient sandbars. The area is one of rich birdlife, both resident and migratory, and visitors are attracted by walks along the banks, excursions by boat and birdwatching.

The Porta Mascarella, where Via Mascarella ends,
is one of 10 remaining gates in Bologna's outer wall

Travel tip:

Via Mascarella, where Renata Viganò lived with her husband in Bologna before they moved out of the city to fight with the Resistance movement in World War Two, is an historic thoroughfare that dates back at least until the early 13th century. Stretching from Via delle Belle Arti to Piazza di Porta Mascarella, it is the only road leading to one of the city’s outer gates that is completely outside the Cerchia del Mille, the second of the three circles of ancient walls built to enclose the city at various points in history. The oldest walls of which visible remains remain today are those of the Cerchia di Selenite, built following the barbarian invasions, at the time of the decline of the Western Roman Empire in the third century and discovered only in the 1920s. These walls enclosed an area of only about 20 hectares. The Cerchia dei Mille was erected probably in the 11th century with the expansion of the city and the growth of new villages outside the original walls. Construction of the third ring began 200 years later. Much of this circle was demolished at the start of the 20th century to make way for a ring road, although thankfully 10 of the 12 gates were preserved.

Also on this day:

1554: The death of poet Gaspara Stampa

1857: The birth of opera composer Ruggero Leoncavallo

1939: The birth of Mafia boss Stefano Bontade

1964: The birth of conductor Gianandrea Noseda

2021: The death of singer and actress Milva

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22 April

Fiorenza Cossotto - mezzo-soprano

Career overshadowed by story of ‘row’ with Maria Callas

Fiorenza Cossotto, a singer considered one of the greatest mezzo-sopranos of the 20th century, was born on this day in 1935 in Crescentino in Piedmont.  Cossotto was hailed for her interpretations of the major mezzo and contralto roles from mid-19th-century Italian operas, particularly those of Giuseppe Verdi such as Aida, Il trovatore and Don Carlos, but also Gaetano Donizetti, Amilcare Ponchielli, Vincenzo Bellini and the other important composers of the day.  Yet she is often remembered for a supposed spat with Maria Callas that led the Greek-American soprano to walk off the stage during her final performance at the Opéra in Paris of her signature role in Bellini’s Norma in 1965.  The incident in question took place immediately after Callas, as Norma, and Cossotto, as Adalgisa, had joined in their duet ‘Mira, o Norma’.  Callas, by that stage a little below her prime, was notoriously temperamental and within moments onlookers were imagining a row, theorising that Cossotto had tried to sabotage Callas’s performance by holding her own high notes longer and singing over Callas.  Read more…

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Alida Valli - actress

Scandal dogged star admired by Mussolini

The actress Alida Valli, who was once described by Benito Mussolini as the most beautiful woman in the world after Greta Garbo, died on this day in 2006 at the age of 84.  One of the biggest stars in Italian cinema in the late 1930s and 40s, when she starred in numerous romantic dramas and comedies, she was best known outside Italy for playing Anna Schmidt, the actress girlfriend of Harry Lime in Carol Reed’s Oscar-winning 1949 classic The Third Man.  She was cast in the role by the producer David O Selznick, who shared the Fascist leader’s appreciation for her looks, and who billed her simply as Valli, hoping it would create for her a Garboesque enigmatic allure.  Later, however, she complained that having one name made her “feel silly”.  Valli was born in Pola, Istria, then part of Italy (now Pula, Croatia), in 1921. She was christened Baroness Alida Maria Laura Altenburger von Marckenstein-Frauenberg, on account of a noble line to her paternal grandfather, Baron Luigi Altenburger, an Austrian-Italian from Trento and a descendant of the Counts d’Arco.  Her father was a journalist and professor. The family moved to Como when she was young.  Read more…

Vittorio Jano - motor racing engineer

Genius behind the success of Alfa Romeo, Lancia and Ferrari

Born on this day in 1891, Vittorio Jano was among the greatest engine designers in motor racing history.  Jano's engines powered cars for Fiat, Alfa Romeo, Lancia and Ferrari during a career that spanned four decades, winning numerous Grand Prix races.  The legendary Argentinian Juan Manuel Fangio won the fourth of his five Formula One world championships in Jano's Lancia-Ferrari D50, in 1956.  Almost 30 years earlier, Jano's Alfa Romeo P2 won the very first Grand Prix world championship in 1925, while its successor, the P3, scored a staggering 46 race wins between 1932 and 1935.  He worked for Ferrari from the mid-50s onwards, where his greatest legacy was the V-8 Dino engine, which was the staple of Ferrari cars on the track and the road between 1966 and 2004.  Jano's parents were from Hungary, but settled in Italy, where his father worked as a mechanical engineer in Turin.  He was born in the small town of San Giorgio Canavese in Piedmont, about 35km (22 miles) north of Turin, and was originally called Viktor János.  Following his father into engineering, he joined Fiat at the age of just 20.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Divas and Scholars: Performing Italian Opera, by Philip Gossett

Divas and Scholars is a dazzling and beguiling account of how opera comes to the stage, filled with Philip Gossett’s personal experiences of triumphant—and even failed—performances and suffused with his towering and tonic passion for music. Writing as a fan, a musician, and a scholar, Gossett, one of  the world's leading authorities on the performance of Italian opera, brings colourfully to life the problems, and occasionally the scandals, that attend the production of some of our favourite operas.  Gossett begins by tracing the social history of 19th-century Italian theatres in order to explain the nature of the musical scores from which performers have long worked. He then illuminates the often hidden but crucial negotiations between opera scholars and opera conductors and performers: What does it mean to talk about performing from a critical edition? How does one determine what music to perform when multiple versions of an opera exist? What are the implications of omitting passages from an opera in a performance? In addition to vexing questions such as these, Gossett also tackles issues of ornamentation and transposition in vocal style, the matters of translation and adaptation, and even aspects of stage direction and set design. Gossett enlivens his history with reports from his own experiences with major opera companies at venues ranging from the Metropolitan and Santa Fe operas to the Rossini Opera Festival at Pesaro. 

Philip Gossett was an American musicologist and historian, and Robert W Reneker Distinguished Service Professor of Music at the University of Chicago. Divas and Scholars: Performing Italian Opera won the Otto Kinkeldey Award of the American Musicological Society as best book on music of 2006.

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21 April

Alessandro Moreschi - the last castrato

Only singer of his type to make solo recordings

Alessandro Moreschi, the singer generally recognised as the last castrato, and the only castrato of whom solo recordings were made, died on this day in 1922 in his apartment in Rome.  Suffering from pneumonia, Moreschi passed away in his apartment in Via Plinio, just a few minutes walk from the Vatican, where he sang for 30 years as a member of the Sistine Chapel choir.  Castrati were male classical singers with voices that were the equivalent of the female soprano, mezzo-soprano or contralto, but which carried much greater power. As the name suggests, these vocal qualities in men were produced through castration, which had to take place before puberty to prevent normal development.  The procedure both impaired the development of the larynx so that the pre-pubescent vocal range was retained and altered the way in which the subject’s bones developed, which resulted often in unusually long limbs and, more significantly, very long ribs, which gave the castrato’s lungs unrivalled capacity.  It was a barbaric practice and many boys did not survive it, but the rewards for those who did were potentially huge.   Read more…

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The birth of Rome

City said to have been founded on April 21, 753 BC

Three days of celebrations in Rome mark the annual Natale di Roma Festival, which commemorates the founding of the city in 753BC.  The traditional celebrations take place largely in the large open public space of Circus Maximus, which hosts many historical re-enactments.  In past years a costumed parade has toured the city, featuring more than 2,000 gladiators, senators, vestal virgins and priestesses.  City museums traditionally offer free entry and many of the city’s restaurants have special Natale di Roma menus.  After dark, many public places are lit up, torches illuminate the Aventine Hill, and firework displays take place by the Tiber river.  According to legend, Romulus and his twin brother, Remus, founded Rome on the site where they were suckled by a she-wolf as orphaned infants.  They were said to be the sons of Rhea Silvia, the daughter of King Numitor of Alba Longa, a city located in the nearby Alban Hills southeast of what would become Rome.  Before they were born, Numitor was deposed by his younger brother Amulius, who murdered his existing son and forced Rhea to become a vestal virgin so that she would not give birth to rival claimants to his title.  Read more…

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Pietro Della Valle – composer and travel writer

Roman wrote unique accounts of 17th century Persia and India 

Composer, musicologist, and writer Pietro Della Valle, who travelled to the Holy Land, Persia and India during the Renaissance and wrote about his experiences in letters to a friend, died on this day in 1652 in Rome.  Della Valle was born in Rome into a wealthy and noble family and grew up to study Latin, Greek, classical mythology and the Bible. Another member of his family was Cardinal Andrea della Valle, after whom the Basilica Sant’Andrea della Valle in Rome was named.  Having been disappointed in love, Pietro Della Valle vowed to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. He sailed from Venice to Istanbul, where he lived for more than a year learning Turkish and Arabic.  He then travelled to Jerusalem, by way of Alexandria, Cairo, and Mount Sinai, where he visited the holy sites. He wrote regular letters about his travels to Mario Schipano, a professor of medicine in Naples, who later published them in three volumes.  Della Valle moved on to Damascus, went to Baghdad, where he married a Christian woman, Sitti Maani Gioenida, before moving on to Persia, now known as Iran. While in the Middle East, Della Valle created one of the first modern records of the location of ancient Babylon.  Read more…

Cosimo I de' Medici

The grand designs of a powerful archduke

The second duke of Florence and first grand duke of Tuscany, Cosimo I, died on this day in 1574 at the Villa di Castello near Florence.  Cosimo had proved to be both shrewd and unscrupulous, bringing Florence under his despotic control and increasing its territories.  He was the first to have the idea of uniting all public services in a single building. He commissioned the Uffizi - offices - a beautiful building that is now an art gallery in the centre of Florence.  Cosimo was the great-great-grandson of Lorenzo the Elder, whose brother was Cosimo the Elder but played no part in politics until he heard of the assassination of his distant cousin, Alessandro.  He immediately travelled to Florence and was elected head of the republic in 1537 with the approval of the city’s senate, assembly and council.  He also had the support of the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V. The Emperor’s generals defeated an army raised against Cosimo, who then had the principal rebels beheaded in public in Florence.  Cosimo began to style himself as a duke and sidelined the other Government bodies in the city.  As the Emperor’s protégée, he remained safe from the hostility of Pope Paul II and King Francis I of France.  Read more…

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Silvana Mangano - actress

Star who married the producer Dino De Laurentiis

The actress Silvana Mangano, who was decried as a mere sex symbol and later hailed as a fine character actress during a quite restricted career, was born on this day in 1930 in Rome.  She found fame through Giuseppe De Santis’s neorealist film Bitter Rice, in which she played a female worker in the rice fields in the Po Valley who becomes involved with a petty criminal Walter, played by Vittorio Gassman.  Mangano’s character was a sensual, lustful young woman and the actress, a former beauty queen, carried it off so well that she was hailed by one critic as “Ingrid Bergmann with a Latin disposition” and likened also to the American glamour queen Rita Hayworth.  She went on to work with many of Italy's leading directors, including Alberto Lattuada, Vittorio De Sica, Pier Paolo Pasolini and Luchino Visconti, but she made only 30 films, in part because she preferred to spend time with her family but also because Dino De Laurentiis, the producer of Bitter Rice who soon became her husband, controlled her career.  It is said that she was offered the important part of Maddalena in Federico Fellini’s La dolce vita but that De Laurentiis prevented her from taking it.  Read more…

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Gino Strada - surgeon and charity founder

‘Maestro of humanity’ built hospitals for war victims

The surgeon and founder of the medical and humanitarian charity Emergency, Gino Strada, was born on this day in 1948 in Sesto San Giovanni, a town that is now effectively a suburb of Milan.  Emergency has provided free healthcare to more than 11 million people in 19 different countries, including locations severely affected by conflict such as Afghanistan, Iraq, and Yemen.  It also operates in Eritrea, Sierra Leone, Uganda, Sudan, Cambodia, Serbia, Nicaragua and Sri Lanka.  The hospitals set up by the organisation - some designed with the help of Strada’s friend, the world-renowned architect Renzo Piano - are built to the highest standards, with the aim of providing world-class treatments and after-care. Strada, who was said himself to have performed more than 30,000 operations on direct or indirect victims of conflict, insisted that the hospitals in which his European volunteers worked had to be places where “you would be happy to have one of your family members treated”.  When Strada died in 2021, among the many tributes paid to him was one by the then president of the European parliament, David Sassoli, who described him as the ‘maestro of humanity’. Read more…

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Book of the Day: The World of the Castrati: The History of an Extraordinary Operatic Phenomenon, by Patrick Barbier

Patrick Barbier's entertaining and authoritative book was the first full study of the subject in the context of the Baroque period. Covering the lives of more than 60 singers from the end of the 16th century to the 19th, he blends history and anecdote as he examines their social origins and backgrounds, their training and debuts, their brilliant careers, their relationship with society and the Catholic Church, and their decline and death. The castrati became a legend that still fascinates us today. Thousands flocked to hear and see these singing hybrids - part man, part woman, part child - who portrayed virile heroes on the operatic stage, their soprano or contralto voices weirdly at variance with their clothes and bearing. The sole surviving scratchy recording tells us little of the extraordinary effect of those voices on their audiences - thrilling, unlike any sound produced by the normal human voice.  Illustrated with photographs and engravings, The World of the Castrati ranges from the glories of patronage and adulation to the darker side of a fashion that exploited the sons of poor families, denied them their manhood and left them, when they were old, to decline into poverty and loneliness. It is a story that will intrigue opera-lovers and general readers alike, superbly told by a writer who has researched his subject with the thoroughness of a true enthusiast

Patrick Barbier is a music historian and writer and a professor at the Catholic University of the West in Angers, western France.

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20 April

Massimo D’Alema – prime minister

Journalist and politician first Communist to lead Italy

Massimo D’Alema, who was prime minister of Italy from 1998 to 2000, was born on this day in 1949 in Rome.  He was the first prime minister in the history of Italy, and the first leader of any of the NATO countries, to have been a Communist Party member.  After studying Philosophy at the University of Pisa, D’Alema became a journalist by profession. He joined the Italian Young Communists’ Federation in 1963, becoming its general secretary in 1975.  D’Alema became a member of the Italian Communist Party (PCI), part of which, in 1991, gave origin to the Democratic Party of the Left (PDS), and, in 1998, to the Democrats of the Left (DS).  D’Alema has also served as the chief editor of the daily newspaper, L’Unità, the official newspaper of the Communist Party.  In October 1998, D’Alema became prime minister of Italy, as the leader of the Olive Tree centre left coalition.  While his party was making the transition to becoming the Democratic Party of the Left, D’Alema stressed the importance of the party’s roots in Marxism with the aim of creating a modern, European, social-democratic party.  Read more…

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Sant’Agnese of Montepulciano

Miraculous life and death of young nun

Dominican prioress Agnese Segni, who was reputed to have performed miracles, died on this day in 1317 in Montepulciano in Tuscany.  She was canonised by Pope Benedict XIII in 1726 and her feast day is celebrated every April 20 on the anniversary of her death.  Agnese was born into the noble Segni family in Gracciano, a frazione - parish - of Montepulciano.  At the age of nine she convinced her parents to allow her to enter a Franciscan sisterhood. She had to have the permission of the pope to be accepted into this life at such a young age, which normally would not be allowed under church law.  After a few years she was one of a group of nuns sent to start a new monastery near Orvieto. When she was just 20 years old she was chosen to be abbess of the community.  She gained a reputation for performing miracles, curing people of their ailments just by her presence. She was reported to have multiplied loaves, creating many from a few on several occasions.  In 1306 she was recalled to head the monastery in Montepulciano and she started to build a church, Santa Maria Novella, to honour Mary, the mother of Jesus.  Read more…

Ivanoe Bonomi – statesman

Liberal socialist was a major figure in transition to peace in 1945

The anti-Fascist politician Ivanoe Bonomi, who served as prime minister of Italy both before and after the dictator Benito Mussolini was in power, died on this day in 1951.  He was 77 but still involved with Italian political life as the first president of the Senate in the new republic, an office he had held since 1948.  Bonomi had briefly been head of a coalition government in 1921, during which time he was a member of one of Italy’s socialist parties, but his major influence as an Italian statesman came during Italy’s transition to peace after the Second World War.  Having stepped away from politics in 1922 following Mussolini’s March on Rome, he resurfaced almost two decades later when he became a leading figure in an anti-Fascist movement in 1942.  He founded a clandestine anti-Fascist newspaper and became a member of an elite committee who would meet in the Seminario Romano, which was owned by the Vatican and therefore considered neutral territory.  Bonomi was one of a number of political figures who urged the King, Victor Emmanuel III, to abandon Italy’s alliance with Germany and remove Mussolini from office.  Read more…

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Pietro Aretino – writer

Satirist was both admired and feared by the nobility

Poet, playwright and prose writer Pietro Aretino was born on this day in 1492 in Arezzo in Tuscany.  Aretino became famous for his satirical attacks on important figures in society and grew wealthy from the gifts he received from noblemen who feared being exposed by his powerful pen.  Although he was the son of an Arezzo shoemaker, he pretended to be the natural son of a nobleman and took his name from Arretium, the Roman name for Arezzo.  He moved to Perugia while still very young and lived the life of a painter, but in 1517 when he was in his early twenties, Aretino moved on to Rome, where he secured the patronage of the rich banker, Agostino Chigi.  When Pope Leo X's pet elephant, Hanno, died, Aretino wrote a satirical pamphlet, The Last Will and Testament of the Elephant Hanno, cleverly mocking the leading political and religious figures in Rome at the time. This established his fame as a satirist. He then wrote a series of viciously satirical lampoons supporting the candidacy of Giulio de’ Medici for the papacy. Giulio duly became Pope Clement VII in 1523.  Despite being supported by the Pope and Chigi, Aretino was finally forced to leave Rome because he had written a collection of ‘lewd sonnets’. Read more…

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Book of the Day: Catholics and Communists in Twentieth-Century Italy: Between Conflict and Dialogue, by Daniela Saresella

Catholics and Communists in Twentieth-Century Italy explores the critical moments in the relationship between the Catholic world and the Italian left, providing unmatched insight into one of the most significant dynamics in political and religious history in Italy in the last 100 years. The book covers the Catholic Communist movement in Rome (1937-45), the experience of the Resistenza, the governmental collaboration between the Catholic Party (DC) and the Italian Communist Party (PCI) until 1947, and the dialogue between some of the key figures in both spheres in the tensest years of the Cold War. Writer Daniela Saresella goes on to consider the legacy that these interactions have left in Italy in the 21st century. This pioneering study is the first on the subject in the English language and is of vital significance to historians of modern Italy and the Catholic Church alike.

Daniela Saresella is Professor of Contemporary History at the University of Milan.

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19 April

NEW - Antonio Locatelli - pioneering aviator

Brave airman tried to circumnavigate the globe

Courageous pilot Antonio Locatelli, who was recognised for his valour during World War I, was born on this day in 1895 in Bergamo in Lombardy.  Locatelli was celebrated for performing solo reconnaissance flights over Zeppelin yards in Austria and for being daring enough to fly over Vienna, before he was shot down and captured and sent to a prisoner of war camp.  He tried unsuccessfully to escape twice, but was successful on his third attempt and was able to rejoin the Italian troops.  After the war, he was awarded three Gold medals and a Silver medal for military valour and made a Knight of the Military Order of Savoy.  Born into a Bergamo family, Locatelli studied at the Istituto Industriale Pietro Paleocapa in Bergamo and then became chief technician at a local company.  After World War I broke out, Locatelli joined a flying unit and was granted his pilot’s licence in 1915. He then served in writer and patriot Gabriele D’Annunzio’s air squadron.  He flew 513 sorties during the war, starting with reconnaissance missions, but then flying fighters and bombers.  In 1924, Locatelli led Italy’s attempt to achieve the first aerial circumnavigation of the globe.  Read more… 

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Lilli Gruber - groundbreaking TV journalist

Writer and broadcaster was first female to host prime time news bulletin

The journalist Lilli Gruber, who in 1987 became the first woman to be appointed anchor of a prime time news show on Italian public television, was born on this day in 1957 in Bolzano.  In a distinguished career, as well as being the face of major news programmes for the national broadcaster Rai, Gruber has reported on many major international stories as a foreign correspondent, presented shows on German television, served as a Member of the European Parliament for five years, and written many books.  Since leaving politics in 2008, she has been the host of the long-running political talk show, Otto e Mezzo, on the Rome-based independent TV channel La7.  Gruber was born Dietlinde Gruber into a German-speaking family in Bolzano, the provincial capital of South Tyrol in the Trentino-Alto Adige region of northeast Italy, which borders Austria and Switzerland.  It was her father, Alfred, an entrepreneur, who gave her the pet name Lilli, which stayed with her into adulthood.  She was educated partly in Verona, where her father built up a business making machinery for the construction industry, and in the town of Egna, near Bolzano. Read more… 

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Canaletto - Venetian painter

Brilliant artist known for beautiful views of Venice

The Venetian artist Giovanni Antonio Canal – better known as Canaletto – died on this day in 1768 in the apartment in Venice in which he had lived for most of his life.  He was 70 years old and according to art historian William George Constable he had been suffering from a fever caused by a bladder infection.  His death certificate dated April 20 indicated that he died la notte scorsa all’ore 7 circa – ‘last night at about seven o'clock’. He was buried in the nearby church of San Lio in the Castello district, not far from the Rialto bridge.  Canaletto was famous largely for the views he painted of his native city, although he also spent time in Rome and the best part of 10 years working in London.  His work was popular with English visitors to Venice, in particular. In the days before photographs, paintings were the only souvenirs that tourists could take home to remind them of the city’s beauty.  Unlike his contemporary, and sometime pupil, Francesco Guardi, whose paintings were a romanticised vision of the city, Canaletto did not feel the need to embellish what he saw.  His works, therefore, were notable for their accuracy.  Read more…

Sara Simeoni - high jumper

Held world record and won Olympic gold

The high jumper Sara Simeoni, who is regarded as one of Italy’s greatest female athletes, was born on this day in 1953 in Rivoli Veronese, a village about 20km (12 miles) northwest of Verona.  Only the second woman to clear two metres, she won the gold medal in her event at the Moscow Olympics of 1980, setting a Games record in the process.  The Moscow Games was boycotted by 66 countries in protest at the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, yet Simeoni, who competed under the Olympic flag after Italy left the issue of participation up to individual athletes, still deserved applause as the only winner in the women’s track and field programme not from an Eastern Bloc country.  She confessed later that she suffered a panic attack just before the final in the Lenin Stadium and was physically sick, but then reminded herself that she was the world record holder and eventually beat the Polish jumper Urszula Kielan with a leap of 1.97m, an Olympic record.  A great friend of the late Pietro Mennea, another 1980 Olympic champion from whom she drew inspiration, she had won the silver medal in Montreal in 1976 and did so again in Los Angeles in 1984.  Read more…

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Paolo Veronese – painter

Artist with a talent for using colour and painting people

A leading figure of the 16th century Venetian school of painting, the artist Paolo Veronese died on this day in 1588 in Venice.  Veronese left a legacy of huge, colourful, paintings full of figures, which depicted allegorical, biblical or historical subjects. Much of his work remains in Venice to this day.  A dominant figure during the Renaissance, Veronese has continued to inspire and be appreciated by many of the great artists who came after him, in particular Rubens, Watteau, Tiepolo and Renoir.  Veronese was born in 1528, taking his grandfather’s surname of Caliari, but later adopting the surname Veronese, referencing his birthplace of Verona.  He began training as an artist at the age of 14 with Antonio Badile, whose daughter, Elena, he later married. One of his early works, Temptation of St Anthony, painted in 1552 for the Cathedral in Mantua, shows the influence of Michelangelo.  In 1553 he began working for the Venetian authorities on the decoration of the Palazzo Ducale. His skilful work on the ceiling of the Hall of the Council of Ten makes the figures appear to be actually floating in space.  Read more…

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Antonio Carluccio - chef and restaurateur

TV personality and author began his career as a wine merchant

The chef, restaurateur and author Antonio Carluccio was born on this day in 1937 in Vietri-sul-Mare in Campania.  An instantly recognisable figure due to his many television appearances, Carluccio moved to London in 1975 and built up a successful chain of restaurants bearing his name.  He wrote 21 books about Italian food, as well as his autobiography, A Recipe for Life, which was published in 2012.  Although born in Vietri, a seaside town between Amalfi and Salerno famous for ceramics, Carluccio spent most of his childhood in the north, in Borgofranco d'Ivrea in Piedmont.  His father was a station master and his earliest memories are of running home from the station where his father worked to warn his mother that the last train of the day had left and that it was time to begin cooking the evening meal.  Carluccio would join his father in foraging for mushrooms and wild rocket in the mountainous countryside near their home and it was from those outings that his interest in food began to develop, yet his career would at first revolve around wine.  Having moved to Austria to study languages, he settled in Germany and between 1962 and 1975 was a wine merchant based in Hamburg.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: History of Flight: From the Flying Machine of Leonardo Da Vinci to the conquest of the space, by Riccardo Niccoli

Riccardo Niccoli's History of Flight is a book dedicated to the history of human flight, ranging from the first, uncertain attempts of the medieval period to the most advanced operations, such as the Space Shuttle, convertiplanes, the unmanned aircraft, the 21st century superfighters, and the commercial airliners to be produced by Airbus and Boeing. The book is divided into 27 chapters in chronological order, each one dedicated to a specific event or type of aircraft, including warplanes, and those used for transport, acrobatic and tourism purposes, seaplanes and helicopters. The aircraft are the leading players in the book, and descriptions are offered of their technical specifications, their development, operating history and sales successes. The section dedicated to the technological development of the aeronautics sector contains entertaining anecdotes, information and comments geared towards providing a complete historic picture of the various periods examined. The book is rich in illustrations and historic and spectacular photographs of all the most important aircraft from the history of international aviation.

Riccardo Niccoli, journalist, writer, photographer and one of the best known Italian aviation historians, has published articles and photographs in the specialist press since 1982, and is the author of a number of books.

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Antonio Locatelli - pioneering aviator

Brave airman tried to circumnavigate the globe

A Dornier Do J flying boat similar to that in which
Antonio Locatelli attempted to fly around the globe 

Courageous pilot Antonio Locatelli, who was recognised for his valour during World War I, was born on this day in 1895 in Bergamo in Lombardy.

Locatelli was celebrated for performing solo reconnaissance flights over Zeppelin yards in Austria and for being daring enough to fly over Vienna, before he was shot down and captured and sent to a prisoner of war camp. 

He tried unsuccessfully to escape twice, but was successful on his third attempt and was able to rejoin the Italian troops.

After the war, he was awarded three Gold medals and a Silver medal for military valour and made a Knight of the Military Order of Savoy.

Born into a Bergamo family, Locatelli studied at the Istituto Industriale Pietro Paleocapa in Bergamo and then became chief technician at a local company.

After World War I broke out, Locatelli joined a flying unit and was granted his pilot’s licence in 1915. He then served in writer and patriot Gabriele D’Annunzio’s air squadron.

He flew 513 sorties during the war, starting with reconnaissance missions, but then flying fighters and bombers.

Locatelli was decorated for his
valour during World War I

In 1924, Locatelli led Italy’s attempt to achieve the first aerial circumnavigation of the globe. With a crew of three, he flew a German-made flying boat, a metal-hulled Dornier Do J Wal (Whale), powered by two Rolls Royce engines.

He left Pisa on July 25 heading west, but his attempt came to an end on August 21 when heavy fog forced him to touch down in the sea 120 miles short of Greenland. The plane’s engine carriers were damaged and so the flight could not be resumed. 

Fortunately, four days earlier he had met up in Reykjavik with the American team who were attempting the same feat and this meeting was to save the lives of Locatelli and his crew.

When the Italians failed to arrive in Greenland, the Americans raised the alarm and Locatelli and his crew were picked up by a US naval ship that had been sent to search the area.

Locatelli later became a National Fascist party legislator and was elected as a deputy to parliament. In 1933 he was nominated as podestà - mayor - of Bergamo, a role in which he served for a year.  

In 1936, at the age of 41, Locatelli was killed in Lechemeti in Ethiopia during the second Italo-Ethiopian war. He was buried in the Cimitero Monumentale di Bergamo.

In Bergamo, Via Antonio Locatelli in the Città Bassa is named after him and he is also commemorated by the Antonio Locatelli Primary School in Cavernago, a comune - municipality - situated about 11km (7 miles) southeast of Bergamo. 

Bergamo's Piazza Vecchia has been hailed as
the most beautiful squares in all of Italy

Travel tip

Bergamo, where Antonio Locatelli was born, is a fascinating, historic city in Lombardy in the north of Italy, which has two distinct centres. The Città Alta (upper town) is a beautiful walled city with buildings that date back to medieval times. But there are plenty of shops, bars, and restaurants to make it comfortable and welcoming for visitors today. At the heart of the upper town is the Piazza Vecchia, which was remodelled during the Renaissance and has been hailed by architects and writers as the most beautiful square in Italy. It is surrounded by old palaces and has a 12th century bell tower that still strikes 100 times at ten pm each night to mark the ancient curfew. The elegant Città Bassa (lower town) grew up on the plain below and still has some buildings left that date back to the 15th century. But more imposing and elaborate architecture was added in the 19th and early 20th centuries and it is now a vibrant city with palaces, churches, art galleries and museums worth visiting as well as a theatre named after Bergamo-born composer Gaetano Donizetti. 

The Tre Cime - three peaks - di Lavoredo is in an 
area where Locatelli would climb as a young man

Travel tip 

Locatelli had been a keen mountaineer in his youth and had climbed the Adamello in Trentino with his brother, Carlo. Therefore, the Antonio Locatelli Hut, a refuge in the Tre Cime Natural Park in Alto Adige-South Tyrol is named after him. The Locatelli refuge can be reached by walking from the Auronzo refuge, which takes approximately one hour and twenty minutes’ or from Lake Landro, a journey of three hours. To honour Locatelli’s memory, a statue of the Virgin of Loreto, the patron saint of airmen, is housed inside the refuge. From the refuge, visitors have panoramic views of the Tre Cime di Lavaredo, three distinctive mountain peaks that look like battlements.

Also on this day:

1588: The death of painter Paolo Veronese

1798: The death of the Venetian painter Canaletto

1937: The birth of chef and restaurateur Antonio Carluccio

1953: The birth of high jumper Sara Simeoni

1957: The birth of TV journalist Lilli Gruber

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18 April

Lucrezia Borgia – notorious beauty

Pope’s daughter who inspired painters and poets

Lucrezia Borgia, the illegitimate daughter of Rodrigo Borgia - Pope Alexander VI - was born on this day in 1480 in Subiaco near Rome.  A reputedly beautiful woman, she entered into arranged marriages to important men to advance her family’s political position and rumours have abounded about the fate of her first two husbands.  Macchiavelli wrote about the Borgia family in his book, The Prince, depicting Lucrezia as some kind of femme fatale and this characterisation of her, whether just or unjust, has lasted over the years, being reproduced in many works of art, books and films.  Lucrezia was born to Vannozza dei Cattanei, one of Rodrigo Borgia’s mistresses, and had three brothers, Cesare, Giovanni and Gioffre. When she was just ten years old the first matrimonial arrangement was made on her behalf but was annulled after a few weeks in favour of a better match, which was also later called off. But after Rodrigo became Pope Alexander VI, he arranged for Lucrezia to marry Giovanni Sforza.  When the Pope needed a new, more advantageous, political alliance it is thought he may have ordered the execution of Giovanni, but Lucrezia was able to warn her husband and he fled to Rome.  Read more…

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Giuseppe Pella – prime minister

Economist did wonders for the value of the lira

Giuseppe Pella, who served as the 31st prime minister of Italy from August 1953 to January 1954, was born on this day in 1902 in Valdengo in Piedmont.  Pella is considered one of the most important politicians in Italy’s postwar history because his economic and monetarist policies led to the strong economic growth that transformed his shattered country into a global industrial power and improved the standard of living for most Italians. Born into a family of sharecroppers, after finishing elementary school Pella attended a technical school and then an accounting institute in Turin. He graduated in economy and commerce in 1924. Pella became a professor of accounting at the Sapienza University of Rome and the University of Turin and also worked as a tax advisor and auditor.  Under the Mussolini regime, Pella was forced to join the National Fascist Party to be able to continue with his profession.  He was appointed a member of the governing council of the Fascist Culture Provincial Institute of Biella, a town near his birth place of Valdengo, and in the late 1930s was appointed deputy podestá - mayor - of Biella.  Read more…

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Giuseppe Terragni - architect

Major pioneer of Italian Rationalism

The influential architect Giuseppe Terragni, who was a pioneer of the modern movement in Italy and a leading Italian Rationalist, was born in Meda, a town in Lombardy between Milan and Como, on this day in 1904.  Terragni's work tends to be associated with the Fascist regime of Benito Mussolini, although some students of his work have questioned whether he should be considered a Fascist architect.  He was a founding member of the Gruppo 7, a collective of seven Italian architects whose aim was to move Italian architecture away from neo-Classical and neo-Baroque revivalism towards Rationalism. The group produced a manifesto spelling out their aims.  Terragni’s most renowned work is the Casa del Fascio in Como, also known as the Palazzo Terragni, which was constructed between 1932 and 1936 and is considered a masterpiece of the International Style of architecture.  Other notable works include his war memorials at Como and Erba, 15km (nine miles) east of the lakeside city, the Posta Hotel in Como, a number of apartment buildings in Como and Milan and the Antonio Sant'Elia nursery school in Como.  Read more…

Ilario Bandini - racing car maker

Farmer's son who created beautiful and successful cars

Ilario Bandini, a businessman and racing driver who went on to construct some of Italy’s most beautiful racing cars, was born on this day in 1911 in Villa Rovere in Emilia-Romagna.  His cars won races in Europe and America and his designs earned the respect of the great Italian performance car maker Enzo Ferrari.  Bandini was from a farming family but was fascinated with cars and motorcycles and began to work part-time as a mechanic while he was still at school, eventually becoming an apprentice in a workshop in nearby Forlì.  At the age of 25 he took the bold decision to move to Eritrea, then an Italian colony, in northern Africa, where he repaired trucks and in time set up a transport business, which was very successful.  The venture made him enough money to open a garage in Forlì when he returned to Italy in 1939, running a repair workshop alongside a car rental and chauffeured limousine business.  At around the same time, he began to compete in motorcycle races, soon graduating from two wheels to four. In 1940, he took part in the Mille Miglia, the 1,000-mile road race from Brescia to Rome and back.  Read more…

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Ippolita Maria Sforza – noblewoman

Learned lady sacrificed happiness for a political alliance

Ippolita Maria Sforza, a cultured young noblewoman who wrote poetry, letters and documents in Latin, was born on this day in 1446 in Cremona.  She was married to Alfonso, Duke of Calabria, who later became King Alfonso II of Naples, because it was a politically advantageous alliance, but she did not live long enough to become his Queen consort.  Ippolita was the eldest daughter of Francesco I Sforza, Duke of Milan, and Bianca Maria Visconti.  She was tutored along with her six younger brothers and one younger sister by a Greek scholar who taught her philosophy and Greek.  When she was 14 years old she composed a Latin address for Pope Pius II, which became well known after it was circulated in manuscript form.  She wrote many letters, which were published in Italy in one volume in 1893. She also wrote poetry and a Latin eulogy for her father, Francesco.  Ippolita was married at the age of 19 to Alfonso, the eldest son of King Ferdinand I of Naples. The marriage created a powerful alliance between the Kingdom of Naples and the Duchy of Milan.  But her husband treated her with a lack of respect throughout their marriage.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Lucrezia Borgia: Life, Love and Death in Renaissance Italy, by Sarah Bradford

Lucrezia Borgia - an infamous murderer or simply the victim of bad press? Lucrezia Borgia's name has echoed through history as a byword for evil - a poisoner who committed incest with her natural father, Pope Alexander VI, and with her brother, Cesare Borgia. Long considered the most ruthless of Italian Renaissance noblewomen, her tarnished reputation has prevailed long since her own lifetime. In this definitive biography, a work of huge scholarship and erudition, Sarah Bradford gives a fascinating account of Lucrezia's life in all its colourful controversy. Daughter, sister, wife and mother, Lucrezia Borgia was surrounded by wealth, privilege and intrigue. But what was the truth behind her extraordinary existence - was she a monster of cruelty and deceit, or simply the pawn of her power-hungry father and brother? Lucrezia Borgia: Life, Love and Death in Renaissance Italy is the first biography of Lucrezia Borgia for over 60 years.

Sarah Bradford is an historian and biographer. Her books include Cesare Borgia (1976), Disraeli (1982), Princess Grace (1984), Sacherevell Sitwell (1993), Elizabeth: A Biography of Her Majesty the Queen (1996), and America's Queen: The Life of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (2000). She lives in London.

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17 April

Gianni Raimondi – tenor

Brilliant performer left few recordings of his voice

Opera singer Gianni Raimondo, who on his first appearance at La Scala in Milan sang opposite Maria Callas in a production by Luchino Visconti, was born on this day in 1923 in Bologna.  Raimondi was admired for his brilliant top notes and exquisite phrasing when he performed. Opera fans have been disappointed that more recordings of his performances were not made at the time.  After studying voice in Bologna and Mantua, the tenor made his stage debut at the Teatro Consorziale in Budrio a small town near Bologna, in 1977 as the Duke in Giuseppe Verdi’s Rigoletto. The following year in Bologna he sang the part of Ernesto in Gaetano Donizetti’s Don Pasquale and was then chosen for the premiere of Il contrabasso by Valentino Bucchi at the Teatro della Pergola in Florence.  In 1956 he made his La Scala debut opposite Callas in Verdi’s La traviata and the following year sang opposite Callas again in Donizetti’s Anna Bolena.  He was also successful at La Scala in Gioachino Rossini’s Mosè in Egitto and Semiramide and as Rodolfo in Giacomo Puccini’s La bohème.  Raimondo made his American debut in 1957 in San Francisco and then took part in La bohème at the Staatsoper in Vienna.  Read more…

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Riccardo Patrese - racing driver

Former Williams ace was first in Formula One to start 250 races

The racing driver Riccardo Patrese, who for 15 years was the only Formula One driver to have started more than 250 Grand Prix races, was born on this day in 1954 in Padua.  The former Williams driver reached the milestone in the German Grand Prix of 1993, having three years earlier been the first to make 200 starts.  Patrese retired at the end of the 1993 season with his total on 256 and his record of longevity was not surpassed until 2008, when the Brazilian driver Rubens Barrichello made his 257th start at the Turkish Grand Prix.  Ferrari ace Michael Schumacher passed 250 two years later and Patrese’s total has now been exceeded by six drivers, Jenson Button, Fernando Alonso, Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa having all joined the 250 club.  Patrese also became famous for an unwanted record, having gone more than six years between his second Grand Prix victory in Formula One, in the 1983 South African GP, and his third, in the San Marino GP of 1990.  He enjoyed his most successful years while driving for Williams between 1987 and 1992, finishing third in the drivers’ championship in 1989 and 1991 and runner-up in 1992.  Read more…

Graziella Sciutti - operatic soprano

Vivacious performer who became a successful director

The operatic soprano Graziella Sciutti, a singer known for a vivacious stage presence and engaging personality who excelled in the work of Mozart, Puccini and Verdi, was born on this day in 1927 in Turin.  The daughter of an organist and pianist, she grew up in a bilingual household, speaking both Italian and her mother’s native tongue, French. Her early childhood was spent in Geneva in Switzerland before the family moved to Rome, so that she could attend the Accademia di Santa Cecilia, which is one of the world’s oldest and most prestigious musical institutions.  Sciutti wanted to play the piano like her father but it became clear she had a notable voice and she caught the eye as a soloist when she was still a student.  She was asked at the last moment to appear in a performance of Bach’s St Matthew Passion, conducted by Herbert von Karajan, the up-and-coming Austrian who would become one of the greatest conductors in the world.  It was a daunting prospect, forced on her at short notice after another singer became ill, but she rose to the challenge and won accolades as a result.  It led her to be spotted by Gabriel Dussurget, founder and leading light of the Festival at Aix-en-Provence Festival.  Read more…

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Giovanni Riccioli – astronomer

Jesuit priest had a crater on the moon named after him

Giovanni Battista Riccioli, a Jesuit priest who became one of the principal astronomers of the 17th century, was born on this day in 1598 in Ferrara.  He was renowned for his experiments with pendulums and falling bodies and for his studies of the motion of the earth and the surface of the moon. Riccioli entered the Society of Jesus when he was 16 and after completing his training began studying the humanities.  Between 1620 and 1628 he studied philosophy and theology at the Jesuit College in Parma, where he was taught by Giuseppe Biancani, who had accepted new ideas such as the existence of lunar mountains.  After Riccioli was ordained he taught physics and metaphysics at Parma and engaged in experiments with falling bodies and pendulums. He is believed to be the first scientist to measure the rate of acceleration of a freely falling body. He also carried out observations of the surface of the moon.  Riccioli became more committed to studying astronomy than theology and his superiors in the Jesuits assigned him to carry out astronomical research.  He went to work at a college in Bologna where he built an observatory.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: The Great Tenors: From Caruso to the Present, by Helena Matheopoulos

Profiling 15 of the greatest tenors of the 20th century, The Great Tenors: From Caruso to the Present (accompanied by an audio CD) presents a collection of illustrated biographies, including those of Luciano Pavarotti, Placido Domingo and José Carreras. Also included are librettos with translations of the arias, and a discography. A visual and auditory celebration, it also features hundreds of photographs.

Helena Matheopoulos is a Greek-born, London-based journalist, author, and biographer. She has worked for The Sunday Times, Tatler and Greek Vogue, as well as writing a number of books, mainly on opera, but including a biography of Juan Carlos I of Spain.

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