Mussolini removed from power

Dictator ousted and placed under arrest

Mussolini, whose regime ruled Italy
from 1922 until his arrest in 1943

The Fascist regime that had ruled Italy for 21 years was ousted on this day in 1943 when Benito Mussolini was arrested by King Victor Emmanuel III, hours after a meeting of the Grand Council of Fascism at the Palazzo Venezia in Rome had passed a vote of no confidence in their leader.

With most Italians desperate to see an end to their country’s participation in a world war in which defeat now looked certain, the Grand Council had been asked to vote on a motion proposed by Count Dino Grandi, a former Blackshirt who had become increasingly disillusioned with the self-styled Duce’s decision-making.

The motion, which Grandi prefaced by launching a scathing attack on his former ally’s leadership and the disastrous path along which Italy had been taken by forming an axis with Nazi Germany, was that the king would be asked to resume his full constitutional authority, effectively removing Mussolini from office.

Grandi, former President of the Chamber of Deputies, was unsure how many Grand Council members would vote in favour of his motion, having received reliable assurances of support from only four of the 27 members, most of whom were undecided. In fact, fearful that he might not leave the palace alive if things went very badly, he had revised his will and attended confession before the meeting, at which he arrived with two hand grenades concealed under his clothing.

Such was Mussolini’s power that the Grand Council, that had been set up originally to advise him, by then existed largely to rubber-stamp his decisions, with votes on any matter almost never taking place.

Yet, with the Allied invasion force already in charge of Sicily and the Germans considering whether to withdraw from the Italian peninsula and leave Italian forces to their fate, the atmosphere at the meeting was fevered and Mussolini ultimately agreed, if reluctantly, that a vote should take place on Grandi’s motion.

Dino Grandi, whose motion to oust
Mussolini carried by 19 votes to eight

After two hours of debate, votes were submitted and counted. Mussolini himself had spelled out that members were voting for the end of Fascism, warning that the Allies were intent on destroying Italy, not just his regime. Yet at 2 am, it was announced that the motion had carried, with 19 votes in favour, eight against. Among those who supported the motion was Galeazzo Ciano, Mussolini's son-in-law.

Nonetheless, Mussolini left the meeting convinced that nothing would change. The vote had no legal status and, having enjoyed the support of Victor Emmanuel III to that point, he went to his daily audience with the monarch the following day expecting to be given reassurances that he could carry on with business as usual.

Instead, the king informed him that he had been dismissed and that General Pietro Badoglio would take over as prime minister. Soon after leaving the audience, Mussolini was arrested on Victor Emmanuel’s orders and taken to a remote location for detention.

Unbeknown to Mussolini, the king himself had also lost faith in the regime.  After disastrous military campaigns in North Africa, Greece, and the Soviet Union, he was aware that public disillusionment was widespread. 

He feared that if he didn’t act, Italy could face civil unrest or fall to the communists, especially if the Allies advanced further. By removing Mussolini, he hoped to negotiate peace and reassert the monarchy’s relevance.

Ordinary Italians, worn down by economic hardship and the relentless bombing of their towns and cities, largely welcomed the news and cheering crowds filled the streets. To placate the Nazis, Badoglio announced that the war would continue alongside Germany, yet at the same time secretly negotiating an armistice with the Allies.

When Italy’s surrender was announced on September 8, German forces swiftly occupied northern and central Italy, freeing Mussolini from captivity in a daring raid on the mountain resort where he had been held and installing him as head of a puppet state - the Italian Social Republic - based in Salò, on the shore of Lake Garda. 

The country descended into a brutal civil war between Fascists and Partisans, lasting until 1945. Fascist rule, though, was over.

The Grand Fascist Council met inside the Palazzo
Venezia, which looks out over the Piazza Venezia

Travel tip:

The Palazzo Venezia, which housed Mussolini's offices during Fascist rule of Italy, is a palace in central Rome, just north of the Capitoline Hill. Originally a modest medieval house intended as the residence of the cardinals appointed to the church of San Marco, it became a residential papal palace. The palazzo, which faces Piazza Venezia and Via del Plebiscito, was built between 1455 and 1467 by Cardinal Pietro Barbo - later Pope Paul II - as a papal residence and later served as the Venetian embassy, giving it its name.  Its exterior resembles a fortress, with battlements and a commanding tower, while the interior reveals elegant cloisters, grand halls, and tranquil gardens. The Sala del Mappamondo was chosen by Benito Mussolini as his headquarters during the Fascist era. From its balcony, Mussolini delivered many of his infamous speeches to crowds in Piazza Venezia.  The palace now houses the Museo Nazionale di Palazzo Venezia and contains a rich collection of Byzantine, Medieval, and Renaissance art.

The Due Torri, built as a gate into the former fortified
centre of Mordano, have become a symbol of the town

Travel tip:

Mordano, where Count Dino Grandi was born, is located in Emilia-Romagna, about 50km (31 miles) southeast of Bologna, some 13km (8 miles) from Imola. With a population of around 4,500, it is an historic town known for its rural architecture, vineyards, and peach orchards. The town’s Roman past is still visible in the grid-like layout of farmland in the surrounding countryside, while the  imposing Due Torri, built in the 19th century in a medieval style inspired by the design of the Arsenale in Venice, marks the entrance to the old fortified centre and has become symbolic of the town. In the nearby Bubano district, the 15th-century Sforza Tower, built by the Sforza family, now houses a museum dedicated to the town's history and culture. 

Also on this day:

1467: The Battle of Molinella

1654: The birth of Baroque composer Agostino Steffani

1883: The birth of musician Alfredo Casella

2014: The death of tenor Carlo Bergonzi

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24 July

Eugene de Blaas - painter

Austro-Italian famous for Venetian beauties

Eugene de Blaas, a painter whose animated depictions of day-to-day life among ordinary Venetians - especially young Venetian women - were his most popular works, was born on this day in 1843 in Albano Laziale, just outside Rome.  Sometimes known as Eugenio Blaas, or Eugene von Blaas, he was of Austrian parentage. His father, Karl, also a painter, was a teacher at the Accademia di Belle Arti (Academy of Fine Arts) in Rome. His brother, Julius, likewise born in Albano, was also a painter.  In 1856, the family moved to Venice after his father was offered a similar position at the Venetian Academy. At that time, Venice attracted artists from all over Europe and the young De Blaas grew up in a social circle that was largely populated by painters and poets.  Like his father, he became interested in the school known as Academic Classicism. Read more… 

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Ermanno Olmi - film director

Won most prestigious awards at Cannes and Venice festivals

The film director Ermanno Olmi, who won both the coveted Palme d’Or at Cannes and the Venice Film Festival’s equivalent Golden Lion with two of his most memorable films, was born on this day in 1931 in the Lombardy city of Bergamo.  His 1978 film L'albero degli zoccoli - The Tree of Wooden Clogs - a story about Lombard peasant life in the 19th century that had echoes of postwar neorealism in the way it was shot, won the Palme d’Or - one of the most prestigious of film awards - at the Cannes Film Festival of the same year.  A decade later, Olmi won the Golden Lion, the top award at the Venice Film Festival, with La leggenda del santo bevitore - The Legend of the Holy Drinker - a story adapted from a novella by the Austrian author Joseph Roth about a homeless drunk in Paris, who is handed a 200-francs lifeline by a complete stranger and vows to find a way to pay it back. Read more… 

Victor Emmanuel of Sardinia

The first king to be called Victor Emmanuel

The King of Sardinia between 1802 and 1821, Victor Emmanuel I was born on this day in 1759 in the Royal Palace in Turin.  He was the second son of King Victor Amadeus III of Sardinia and was known from birth as the Duke of Aosta.  When the King died in 1796, Victor Emmanuel’s older brother succeeded as King Charles Emmanuel IV of Sardinia.  Within two years the royal family was forced to leave Turin because their territory in the north was occupied by French troops.  After his wife died, Charles Emmanuel abdicated the throne in favour of his brother, Victor Emmanuel, because he had no heir.  The Duke of Aosta became Victor Emmanuel I of Sardinia in June 1802 and ruled from Cagliari for the next 12 years until he was able to return to Turin.  During his reign he formed the Carabinieri, which is still one of the primary forces of law and order in Italy.  Read more… 

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Giuseppe Di Stefano – tenor

Singer from Sicily who made sweet music with Callas

The opera singer Giuseppe Di Stefano, whose beautiful voice led people to refer to him as ‘the true successor to Beniamino Gigli’, was born on this day in 1921 in Motta Sant’Anastasia, a town near Catania in Sicily.  Di Stefano also became known for his many performances and recordings with the soprano, Maria Callas, with whom he had a brief romance.  The only son of a Carabinieri officer, who later became a cobbler, and his dressmaker wife, Di Stefano was educated at a Jesuit seminary and for a short while contemplated becoming a priest.  But after serving in the Italian army he took singing lessons from the Swiss tenor, Hugues Cuenod. Di Stefano made his operatic debut in Reggio Emilia in 1946 when he was in his mid-20s, singing the role of Des Grieux in Massenet’s Manon. The following year he made his debut at La Scala in Milan in the same role.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Venice: City of Pictures, by Martin Gayford

Venice was a major centre of art in the Renaissance: the city where the medium of oil on canvas became the norm. Nowhere else has been depicted by so many great painters in so many diverse styles and moods. Venetian views were a speciality of native artists such as Canaletto and Guardi, but the city has also been represented by outsiders: J M W Turner, Claude Monet, John Singer Sargent, Howard Hodgkin and many more. Then there are those who came to look at and write about art. The reactions of Henry James, George Eliot, Richard Wagner and others enrich this tale. Since the advent of the Venice Biennale in the 1890s, and the arrival of Peggy Guggenheim in the late 1940s, the city has become a shop window for the contemporary art of the whole world, and it remains the site of important artistic events.  In City of Pictures,  Martin Gayford - who has visited Venice countless times since the 1970s and covered every Biennale since 1990 - takes us on a visual journey through the city’s past five centuries.

Martin Gayford has been art critic for the Spectator and the Sunday Times, and Chief European Art Critic for Bloomberg, as well as being the author of many books, including A Bigger Message: Conversations with David Hockney; Man with a Blue Scarf: On Sitting for a Portrait by Lucian Freud; and Constable in Love: Love, Landscape, Money and the Making of a Great Painter. 

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23 July

Licia Albanese – soprano

Butterfly had a long career

Operatic soprano Licia Albanese, whose portrayal of Verdi and Puccini heroines delighted audiences all over the world, was born on this day in 1909 in Bari in the region of Puglia.  She made her operatic debut unexpectedly in 1934 at the Teatro Lirico in Milan during a performance of Giacomo Puccini's Madama Butterfly. Albanese was understudying the title role and when the soprano became ill during Act One, she was hustled on to the stage to take over in Act Two.  She was a great success and during the next 40 years sang more than 300 performances in the role of Cio-Cio-San, the geisha who is better known as Madama Butterfly.  Her connection with the opera began early when she was studying with the singer, Giuseppina Baldassare-Tedeschi, who was a contemporary of  Puccini, and had been the greatest Butterfly of her day.  Read more… 

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Zàini - Milan chocolate manufacturer

First factory opened in Via Carlo de Cristoforis

The Milan chocolate producer Zàini was founded on this day in 1913 when the company’s first factory opened in the Porta Garibaldi district of the city. The plant, opened by Luigi Zàini, a young entrepreneur, in Via Carlo de Cristoforis, was advertised as a ‘Factory of Chocolate, Cocoa, Candies, Jams and Similar’.   Zàini, who had experience in the confectionery business as an importer of biscuits, jams and other sweet products from northern Europe, had noted the rapidly growing popularity of chocolate and thought the time was right to move on from his role as middleman and become a producer in his own right.  In Milan at the time there were around 15 chocolate factories, so competition was keen, but Luigi had a unique selling point in mind. His dream was to be able to satisfy any wish for something sweet. Read more…

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Damiano Damiani – screenwriter and director

Filmmaker behind the hit Mafia drama series La piovra

Damiano Damiani, who directed the famous Italian television series La piovra, which was about the Mafia and its involvement in Italian politics, was born on this day in 1922 in Pasiano di Pordenone in Friuli.  Damiani also made a number of Mafia-themed films and he was particularly acclaimed for his 1966 film, A Bullet for the General, starring Gian Maria Volontè, which came at the beginning of the golden age of Italian westerns.  Damiani studied at the Accademia di Brera in Milan and made his debut in 1947 with the documentary, La banda d’affari. After working as a screenwriter, he directed his first feature film, Il rossetto, in 1960.  His 1962 film, Arturo’s Island, won the Golden Shell at the San Sebastian International film festival.  During the 1960s, Damiani was praised by the critics and his films were box office successes.  Read more… 

Francesco Cilea – opera composer

Calabrian remembered for beautiful aria Lamento di Federico 

Composer Francesco Cilea was born on this day in 1866 in Palmi near Reggio di Calabria.  He is particularly admired for two of his operas, L’arlesiana and Adriana Lecouvreur.  Cilea loved music from an early age. It is said that when he was just four years old he heard music from Vincenzo Bellini’s opera, Norma, and was moved by it.  When he became old enough, he was sent to study music in Naples and at the end of his course of study there he submitted an opera he had written, Gina, as part of his final examination. When this was performed for the first time it attracted the attention of a music publisher who arranged for it to be performed again.  Cilea was then commissioned to produce a three-act opera, meant to be along the lines of Pietro Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana, by the same publisher.  Read more… 

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Sergio Mattarella – President of Italy

Anti-Mafia former Christian Democrat is Italy's 12th President

The first Sicilian to become President of Italy, Sergio Mattarella, was born on this day in 1941 in Palermo.  Mattarella, who has occupied the office since 2015, went into politics after the assassination of his brother, Piersanti, by the Mafia in 1980. His brother had been killed while holding the position of President of the Regional Government of Sicily.  Their father, Bernardo Mattarella, was an anti-Fascist, who with other prominent Catholic politicians helped found the Christian Democrat (Democrazia Cristiana) party. They dominated the Italian political scene for almost 50 years, with Bernardo serving as a minister several times. Piersanti Mattarella was also a Christian Democrat politician.  Sergio Mattarella graduated in Law from the Sapienza University of Rome and later started teaching parliamentary procedure at the University of Palermo. Read more… 

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Book of the Day: Puccini Without Excuses: A Refreshing Reassessment of the World's Most Popular Composer, by William Berger

Puccini is the most beloved composer of opera in the world: one quarter of all opera performances in the U.S. are of his operas, his music pervades movie soundtracks, and his plots have infiltrated our popular culture. But, although Puccini's art still captivates audiences and the popularity of such works as Tosca, La Bohéme, and Madama Butterfly has never waned, he has long been a victim of critical snobbery and cultural marginalization.  In Puccini Without Excuses, a witty and informative guide for beginners and fans alike, William Berger sets the record straight, reclaiming Puccini as a serious artist. Combining his trademark irreverent humour with passionate enthusiasm, he strikes the right balance of introductory information and thought-provoking analysis. He includes a biography, discussions of each opera, and above all keen insight into Puccini's enduring power. 

William Berger was born in California and studied Romance languages and music at the University of California. He worked for five years at the San Francisco Opera Company and is the author of Wagner Without Fear and Verdi With a Vengeance.

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22 July

Palermo falls to the Allies

Capture of Sicilian capital triggered ousting of Mussolini

One of the most significant developments of the Second World War in Italy occurred on this day in 1943 when Allied forces captured the Sicilian capital, Palermo.  A battle took place between General George S Patton’s Seventh Army and some German and Italian divisions but it was not a prolonged affair.  The Sicilians themselves by then had little appetite to fight in a losing cause on behalf of the Germans and the invading soldiers were greeted by many citizens as liberators.  It was not a decisive victory for the Allies but it had a symbolic value, signifying the fall of Sicily only 12 days after Allied forces had crossed the Mediterranean from bases in North Africa and landed at Pachino and Gela on the south coast of the island.  In fact, the Americans and the British were still meeting German resistance around Catania and Messina in the northeastern corner of the island. Read more… 

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Massimo Carlotto - novelist

Writer wrongly jailed for murder now best-selling author

Massimo Carlotto, the best-selling novelist who spent three years on the run, eight years in jail and a further 11 years clearing his name over a murder he did not commit, was born on this day in 1956 in Padua.  Carlotto, who began his writing career in 1995 with a fictionalised autobiography, Il fuggiasco (The Fugitive), about his time on the run, is best known for his dark crime series featuring an unlicensed investigator, Marco Buratti, nicknamed L’alligatore (The Alligator), six of which have been published in English.  The so-called Carlotto Case became one of the most controversial episodes in Italian legal history.  It began in 1976, at the height of the period of intense political tension and unrest in Italy known as the Years of Lead, when the 19-year-old Carlotto, then a student, was a member of the ultra left activist group, Lotta Continua.  Read more… 

Gorni Kramer - jazz musician

Multi-talented composer of more than 1,000 songs

The songwriter, musician and band leader Gorni Kramer was born on this day in 1913 in the village of Rivarolo Mantovano, near Mantua.  An accomplished accordion and double bass player, Kramer later became a record producer, arranger and television writer.  His embrace of the jazz and swing genres developed in spite of them being banned from being played on Italian state radio during the Fascist era.  He was a prolific composer thought to have written more than 1,000 songs during a career that spanned 60 years.  Kramer’s non-Italian sounding name led to a misconception that he was born in another country, yet it was his real name - reversed.  He was born Francesco Kramer Gorni, so named because his father was a fan of the American cycling world champion Frank Kramer.  It was from his father that Gorni inherited his passion for music. Read more… 

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Indro Montanelli – journalist

Veteran writer who cast a critical eye on Italian politics and society

A writer and journalist regarded as one of the greatest of 20th century Italy, Indro Montanelli died on this day in 2001 in Milan.  The previous year he had been named as one of 50 World Press Freedom Heroes by the International Press Institute.  Montanelli had been a witness to many of the major events of the 20th century. He was in Danzig when Hitler rejected the ultimatum from Britain and France in September 1939. He was in the streets of Budapest in 1956 when Soviet tanks rolled in and he was shot in the legs by Red Brigades terrorists on an Italian street in 1977.  Montanelli was born Indro Alessandro Raffaello Scizogene Montanelli in 1909 at Fucecchio near Florence.  He studied for a law degree at the University of Florence in the early 1920s and began his journalistic career by writing for the Fascist newspaper, Il Selvaggio.  Read more… 

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St Lawrence of Brindisi

Talented linguist who converted Jews and Protestants

St Lawrence of Brindisi was born Giulio Cesare Russo on this day in 1559 in Brindisi.  He became a Roman Catholic priest and joined the Capuchin friars, taking the name Brother Lawrence.  He was made St Lawrence in 1881, remembered for his bravery leading an army against the Turks armed only with a crucifix.  Lawrence was born into a family of Venetian merchants and was sent to Venice to be educated. He joined the Capuchin order in Verona when he was 16 and received tuition in theology, philosophy and foreign languages from the University of Padua. He could speak many European and Semitic languages fluently.  Pope Clement VIII gave Lawrence the task of converting Jews living in Rome to Catholicism because of his excellent command of Hebrew. Read more… 

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Book of the Day: The Battle for Sicily: Stepping Stone to Victory, by Ian Blackwell

On the night of 9-10 July 1943, an Allied armada launched the invasion of Sicily, a larger operation than the Normandy landings the following year. Over the next 38 days, half a million Allied servicemen fought the Germans and Italians for control of this rocky island, which was to become the first part of Axis homeland to fall during World War II.  In The Battle for Sicily, Blackwell explains how, despite their success in capturing the island, inter-Allied and inter-service divisions and rivalries robbed the Allies of the opportunity to inflict a crushing defeat on the Germans and Italians, who were able to conduct a fighting withdrawal to the Italian mainland and save sizable forces to continue the war. Regarded by some as a "blind alley" and by others as the way into Europe via the "soft underbelly", the decision to invade Sicily was and remains controversial. Notwithstanding the campaign's failure to achieve its potential, invaluable lessons were learned which contributed to success in France later. Many of the leading generals who were to take prominent roles in northwest Europe - amongst them Eisenhower, Montgomery, Bradley and Patton - brought with them the experience of Sicily.

Ian Blackwell is a former career soldier who has a specialist knowledge of the Italian Campaign, thanks to his research and battlefield tour experience. His earlier books include Cassino, Anzio and Operation Husky.

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21 July

Suso Cecchi D'Amico - screenwriter

Woman who scripted many of Italy's greatest movies

Suso Cecchi D’Amico, the most accomplished and sought-after screenwriter in 20th century Italian cinema, was born on this day in 1914 in Rome.  She collaborated on the scripts of more than 100 films in a career spanning 60 years and worked with almost every Italian director of note, particularly the pioneers of neorealism, the movement in which she was a driving force.  The classic films in which she was involved are some of the greatest in cinema history, including  Vittorio De Sica's Bicycle Thieves (1948), William Wyler's Roman Holiday (1953), Mario Monicelli's I Soliti Ignoti (1958), which was released in the United States and Britain as Big Deal on Madonna Street, and Francesco Rosi's Salvatore Giuliano (1962).  She also worked with Michelangelo Antonioni on Le Amiche (The Girlfriends, 1955) and Franco Zeffirelli on Jesus of Nazareth (1977), but she was best known for her professional relationship with Luchino Visconti.  Read more…

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The Battle of Bezzecca

Garibaldi-led force suffers heavy casualties but wins important victory

The Battle of Bezzecca, a significant Italian victory in the push for unification, took place on this day in 1866 on a site approximately 10km (six miles) west of the northern tip of Lake Garda in what is now the Trentino region of northern Italy.  The battle was part of the Third Italian War of Independence as the new Kingdom of Italy, which had been formally proclaimed in 1861, sought to expel the Austrians from Venetia, which along with Papal Rome had remained outside the control of the fledgling nation.  It took place within the wider context of the Austro-Prussian War, a conflict that had begun earlier in the year after a territorial dispute. Italy, sensing an opportunity to annex Venetia and the part of Lombardy still under Austrian rule, had agreed an alliance with Prussia.  The Prussian victory at the Battle of Königgrätz resulted in Austria moving troops from Venetia towards Vienna. Read more…

Guglielmo Ferrero - journalist and historian

Nobel prize nominee who opposed Fascism

The historian, journalist and novelist Guglielmo Ferrero, who was most famous for his five-volume opus The Greatness and Decline of Rome, was born on this day in 1871.  The son of a railway engineer, he was born just outside Naples at Portici but his family were from Piedmont and while not travelling he lived much of his adult life in Turin and Florence.  A liberal politically, he was vehemently opposed to any form of dictatorship and his opposition to Mussolini’s Fascists naturally landed him in trouble. He was a signatory to the writer Benedetto Croce's Anti-Fascist Manifesto and when all liberal intellectuals were told to leave Italy in 1925, he refused. Consequently he was placed under house arrest.  It was only after four years, following appeals by officials from the League of Nations and the personal intervention of the King of Belgium, that he was allowed to leave Italy.  Read more…

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Beppe Grillo - comedian turned activist

Grillo founded populist Five Star Movement 

The comedian turned political activist Beppe Grillo was born on this day in 1948 in Genoa.  Grillo is the founder of the Five Star Movement - Movimento Cinque Stelle - an Italian political party that has enjoyed rapid growth in recent years. It enjoyed one of its first high-profile successes when Virginia Raggi was elected Mayor of Rome in 2016, while Luigi Di Maio, who succeeded Grillo as leader, became Italy’s foreign minister and deputy prime minister between 2018 and 2019.  The party's current president, Giuseppe Conte, was prime minister of Italy from 2018 to 2021. The Five Star Movement - M5S - polled more than 25 per cent of the votes for the Chamber of Deputies at the 2013 elections in Italy, increasing its share to 32.7 per cent in 2018, which made it Italy’s largest party.  At the same time as Raggi won 67 per cent of the vote in Rome, another M5S candidate, Chiara Appendino, was elected Mayor of Turin. Read more…

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Book of the Day:  A History of Italian Cinema, by Peter Bondanella and Federico Pacchioni

This second edition of A History of Italian Cinema, an update of the bestselling definitive guide, was published to celebrate its 35th anniversary in 2018. Building upon decades of research, Peter Bondanella and Federico Pacchioni’s new edition brings the definitive history of the subject, from the birth of cinema to the present day, up to date with a revised filmography as well as more focused attention on the melodrama, the crime film, and the historical drama. The book is expanded to include a new generation of directors as well as to highlight themes such as gender issues, immigration, and media politics. Accessible, comprehensive, and heavily illustrated throughout, this is an essential purchase for any fan of Italian film.

Peter Bondanella is the author of a number of groundbreaking books, including Hollywood Italians, The Cinema of Federico Fellini, and The Films of Roberto Rossellini. In 2009, he was elected to the European Academy of Sciences and the Arts for his contributions to the history of Italian cinema and his translations or editions of Italian literary classics (Dante, Boccaccio, Machiavelli, Vasari, Cellini).  Federico Pacchioni is Sebastian Paul & Marybelle Musco Chair of Italian Studies at Chapman University, Orange, California, USA.

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20 July

NEW - Pope Leo XIII

Why the papal name Leo has been inspirational

Pope Leo XIII, who was the fourth longest serving pope in history, died on this day in 1903 in Rome at the age of 93. His reputation for supporting the rights of industrial workers inspired the current pope, Leo XIV, to choose Leo as his papal name after he was elected in May 2025.  Leo XIII served as pope for 25 years, despite fears after his election in 1878 that he was in delicate health. Only three popes have served for longer. They were the first pope, Saint Peter the Apostle, Pope Pius IX, and Pope John Paul II. Leo XIII was born Gioacchino Vincenzo Raffaele Luigi Pecci in Carpineto Romano in Lazio in 1810. His family were noble and religious and he was educated at the Jesuit College of Viterbo. He enjoyed Latin and was writing poems in Latin by the age of 11.  After his mother died, his father wanted his children to be near him, so he moved to Rome. Read more…

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Giorgio Morandi – painter

The greatest master of still life in the 20th century

The artist Giorgio Morandi, who became famous for his atmospheric representations of still life, was born on the day in 1890 in Bologna.  Morandi’s paintings were appreciated for their tonal subtlety in depicting simple subjects, such as vases, bottles, bowls and flowers.  He studied at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Bologna and taught himself to etch by studying books on Rembrandt. Even though he lived his whole life in Bologna, he was deeply influenced by the work of Cézanne, Derain and Picasso.  In 1910 Morandi visited Florence, where the work of Giotto, Masaccio, Piero della Francesca and Paolo Uccello also impressed him.  Morandi was appointed as instructor of drawing for elementary schools in Bologna, a position he held from 1914 until 1929. He joined the army in 1915 but suffered a breakdown and had to be discharged.  Read more…

Death of Marconi

State funeral for engineer who was at first shunned

Guglielmo Marconi, the Italian electrical engineer who is credited with the invention of radio, died on this day in Rome in 1937.  Aged 63, he passed away following a series of heart attacks.  He was granted a state funeral in recognition of the prestige he brought to Italy through his work. In Great Britain, where he had spent a significant part of his professional life, all BBC and Post Office radio transmitters observed a two-minute silence to coincide with the start of the funeral service in Rome.  Marconi was born in Bologna on April 25, 1874. His father, Giuseppe Marconi, was an Italian country gentleman who was married to Annie Jameson, a member of the Jameson whiskey family from County Wexford in Ireland.  A student of physics and electrical science from an early age, Guglielmo conducted experiments at his father's country estate near Bologna. Read more…

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Giovanna Amati - racing driver

Kidnap survivor who drove in Formula One

Racing driver Giovanna Amati, the last female to have been entered for a Formula One Grand Prix, was born on this day in 1959 in Rome.  The story of Amati’s signing for the Brabham F1 team in 1992 was all the more remarkable for the fact that 14 years earlier, as an 18-year-old girl, she had been kidnapped by a ransom gang and held for 75 days in a wooden cage.  Kidnaps happened with alarming frequency in Italy in the 1970s, a period marked by social unrest and acts of violence committed by political extremists, often referred to as the Years of Lead. Young people with rich parents were often the targets. Amati, whose father Giovanni was a wealthy industrialist who owned a chain of cinemas, fitted the bill.  She was snatched outside the family’s villa in Rome in February 1978 and held first in a house a short distance away and then at a secret location. Read more… 

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Book of the Day:  The Popes: A History, by John Julius Norwich

The Popes: A History traces the history of the oldest continuing institution in the world, tracing the papal line down the centuries from St Peter himself – traditionally (though by no means historically) the first pope – to Benedict XVI, who was pope from 2005 to 2013. Of the 280-odd holders of the supreme office, some have unques­tionably been saints; others have wallowed in unspeakable iniquity. One was said to have been a woman – and an English woman at that – her sex being revealed only when she improvidently gave birth to a baby during a papal procession. Pope Joan never existed (though the Church long believed she did) but many genuine pontiffs were almost as colourful: Formosus, for example, whose murdered corpse was exhumed, clothed in pontifical vestments, propped up on a throne and subjected to trial; or John XII of whom Gibbon wrote: 'his rapes of virgins and widows deterred female pilgrims from visiting the shrine of St Peter lest, in the devout act, they should be violated by his successor.’

John Julius Norwich was well known for his histories of Norman Sicily, Venice, the Byzantine Empire and the Mediterranean. The second Viscount Norwich, he is an agnostic with no religious axe to grind. In this rich, authoritative book he does full justice to a rich and important tale. He was the son of the Conservative politician and diplomat Duff Cooper, later Viscount Norwich, and of Lady Diana Manners, a celebrated beauty and society figure.

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Pope Leo XIII

Why the papal name Leo has been inspirational

A photograph of Pope Leo XIII
taken at the time of his election

Pope Leo XIII, who was the fourth longest serving pope in history, died on this day in 1903 in Rome at the age of 93. His reputation for supporting the rights of industrial workers inspired the current pope, Leo XIV, to choose Leo as his papal name after he was elected in May 2025.

Leo XIII served as pope for 25 years, despite fears after his election in 1878 that he was in delicate health. Only three popes have served for longer. They were the first pope, Saint Peter the Apostle, Pope Pius IX, and Pope John Paul II.

He was born Gioacchino Vincenzo Raffaele Luigi Pecci in Carpineto Romano in Lazio in 1810. His family were both noble and religious and he was educated at the Jesuit College of Viterbo. He enjoyed Latin and was writing his own poems in Latin by the age of 11.

After his mother died, his father, Count Domenico Pecci, wanted his children to be near him, so he moved to Rome, where he attended the Jesuit Collegium Romanum.

As a young man, Pecci studied at the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy, where he won awards for academic excellence. He was appointed as a prelate by Pope Gregory XVI before he was even ordained as a priest and he was later appointed as papal legate to Benevento.

He faced a decaying local economy badly affected by Mafia and Camorra organisations linked to the local aristocracy. Pecci arrested the most powerful aristocrat in Benevento and had others either killed or imprisoned.  He reformed the tax system to stimulate trade.

He was then sent to Perugia where his fight against corruption continued. When it was claimed a baker was selling bread below the legal weight, he personally went to the bakery and had all the bread weighed. The bread found to be below the weight was confiscated and distributed to poor people.

A book illustration showing
Pecci as Nuncio to Belgium

At the age of 33, Pecci was appointed Apostolic Nuncio to Belgium and he was then consecrated as an archbishop. 

From 1846 to 1877 he was a popular Archbishop of Perugia. He formed homeless shelters for boys, girls, and women, opened a bank, Monte di Pietà, which provided low-interest loans to poor people, and he created soup kitchens. 

After being appointed Cardinal Bishop of Crisogno in 1853, Pecci began to address the role of the church in modern society, defining it as ‘the mother of material civilisation’ because it upheld the dignity of working people and their right to a fair wage and to go on strike.

He was appointed to an office in the papal household in 1877 by Pope Pius IX, which required him to move back to Rome. After Pius IX died in 1878, Cardinal Pecci was elected as the new pope on the third ballot and he chose the papal name Leo XIII. He said he had always venerated Pope Leo XII because he admired his conciliatory attitude to foreign governments and his interest in education.

It was thought at the time that the more conservative cardinals voted for Pecci because they believed his age and health meant that his papacy would be brief, and they were trying to thwart other candidates they did not want to see elected.

However, during the next 25 years, Leo XIII worked to improve understanding between the church and the modern industrial world. He tried to reverse the trend towards an increasingly impoverished working class with socialist sympathies and anticlerical views, and he improved relations with Russia, Germany, France, and Britain. He also made the Catholic Church become more open to scientific progress.

An 1878 magazine illustration of
the Pecci house in Carpineto Romano

His 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum addressed social inequality and social justice issues using papal authority, arguing that both capitalism and communism were flawed. 

He elevated the English Catholic theologian John Henry Newman to be a cardinal, along with creating the first cardinals from Australia, Canada, Slovenia, and Armenia.

After becoming ill in June 1903, Leo XIII died in the Apostolic Palace of pneumonia on July 20.

He was the first pope to have been born in the 19th century and the first to die in the 20th century. He had run the Catholic Church with efficiency and helped to gain more respect for the papacy at home and abroad. 

Leo XIII was entombed in Saint Peter’s Basilica briefly, but was later moved to the Basilica of Saint John Lateran in Rome, a church in which he had been particularly interested.

When the American cardinal Robert Francis Prevost was elected as pope in 2025, he said one of the main reasons he chose Leo as his papal name was because of the social justice encyclical Rerum Novarum that had been written by Pope Leo XIII.

Piazza Regina Margherita has a fountain
dedicated to Pope Leo XIII

Travel tip:

Carpineto Romano, where Pope Leo XIII was born, is a small town in Lazio, about 37 miles (60km) southeast of Rome. There are still Roman ruins and medieval buildings to be seen, but it was made more splendid in the 16th century by the wealthy Aldobrandini family. It was a duchy under Donna Olimpia Aldobrandini, who played a significant role in its development. The town centre still has narrow cobblestone streets and some elegant palazzi with limestone doorways bearing Italian and Latin inscriptions. The Church of Saint John was significantly reworked while Leo XIII was Pope. It has a portal with bronze panels by the sculptor Tommaso Ambrosetti, who was from nearby Anagni. There is a fountain commemorating Leo XIII in Piazza Regina Margherita.  Carpineto Romano is situated in the Lepini mountains, offering views of the plains of Latina and the Sacco river valley.  The town attracts many visitors to the annual Pallio della Carriera festival, which re-enacts the splendour of the Aldobrandini era and includes a historical procession and a horse race, as well as stalls and exhibits highlighting the town's traditional cuisine.

The Basilica di San Domenico in Perugia has a
 bell tower that rises to almost 200ft (60m)

Travel tip:

Perugia, the capital of Umbria, where Pope Leo XIII spent more than 30 years as an archbishop, is a vibrant city that combines strong echoes of a significant history with an effervescent modern culture.  Standing atop a hill in the Tiber valley, in Etruscan times it was one of the most powerful cities of the period and its strategic position has made it a target for invading armies ever since. The city of today evolved around a fortified medieval village, at the heart of which is Piazza IV Novembre, which has a fountain, the Fontana Maggiore, sculpted by Nicolo and Giovanni Pisano.  The city’s imposing Basilica di San Domenico, built in the early 14th century also to designs by Giovanni Pisano, is the largest church in Umbria, with a distinctive 60m (197ft) bell tower and a 17th-century interior, designed by Carlo Maderno. It contains the tomb of Pope Benedict XI, who died in 1304. Nowadays, Perugia is term-time home to some 34,000 students at the University of Perugia and hosts the world-renowned Umbria Jazz Festival each July. Perugia is the home of the Perugina chocolate company, famous for Baci, which it celebrates with a chocolate festival each summer. 

Also on this day: 

1890: The birth of painter Giorgio Morandi

1937: The death of electrical engineer Guglielmo Marconi

1959: The birth of racing driver Giovanna Amati

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19 July

Jacopo Tiepolo - Doge of Venice

Ruler laid down the law and granted land for beautiful churches

Jacopo Tiepolo, the Doge who granted the land for the building of the Basilica di Santi Giovanni e Paolo and the Basilica di Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, died on this day in 1249 in Venice.  His election as Doge in 1229 had sparked a feud between the Tiepolo and Dandolo families, which led to the rules being changed for future elections. He also produced five books of statutes setting out Venetian law which was to change life in Venice significantly, bringing a raft of civil and economic regulations to which Venetians were obliged to adhere.  Tiepolo, who was also known as Giacomo Tiepolo, had previously served as the first Venetian Duke of Crete and had two terms as podestà – chief administrator - in Constantinople.  He acted as the de facto ruler of the Latin Empire, negotiating treaties with the Egyptians and the Turks.  Read more…

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The Great Fire of Rome

City devastated by nine-day blaze

Almost two thirds of the ancient city of Rome was destroyed in the Great Fire of Rome, which took hold on this day in 64 AD.  Accounts vary as to whether the blaze began on July 19 or on the evening of July 18. What seems not to be in doubt is that the fire spread uncontrollably for six days, seemed to burn itself out, then reignited and continued for another three days.  Of Rome’s 14 districts at the time, only four were unaffected. In three, nothing remained but ashes and the other seven fared only marginally better, with just a few scorched ruins still standing.  Among the more important buildings in the city, the Temple of Jupiter Stator, the House of the Vestals, and the emperor Nero's palace, the Domus Transitoria were damaged or destroyed, along with the part of the Forum where senators lived and worked.  Read more…

Cesare Cremonini - philosopher

Great thinker famous for Galileo ‘denial’

The philosopher Cesare Cremonini, the contemporary and friend of Galileo Galilei who famously refused to look at the Moon through Galileo’s telescope, died on this day in 1631 in Padua.  Cremonini was considered one of the great thinkers of his time, a passionate advocate of the doctrines of the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle. He was paid a handsome salary by his patron, Alfonso II d’Este, the Duke of Ferrara, and kings and princes regularly sought his counsel.  He struck up a friendship with the poet, Torquato Tasso, while he was studying in Ferrara, and met Galileo in 1550 after he was appointed by the Venetian Republic to the chair of the University of Padua.  The two built a relationship of respect and friendship that endured for many years, despite many differences of opinion, yet in 1610 a divergence of views on one subject created an impasse.  Read more…

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Petrarch – Renaissance poet

Writer whose work inspired the modern Italian language

Renaissance scholar and poet Francesco Petrarca died on this day in 1374 at Arquà near Padua, now renamed Arquà Petrarca. Known in English as Petrarch, he is considered to be an important figure in the history of Italian literature.  He is often credited with initiating the 14th century Renaissance, after his rediscovery of Cicero’s letters, and also with being the founder of Humanism.  In the 16th century, the Italian poet Pietro Bembo created the model for the modern Italian language based on Petrarch’s works.  Petrarch was born in Arezzo in Tuscany in 1304. His father was a friend of the poet Dante Alighieri, but he insisted that Petrarch studied law.  The poet was far more interested in writing and in reading Latin literature. Petrarch’s first major work, Africa, about the Roman general, Scipio Africanus, turned him into a celebrity.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Venice: Pure City, by Peter Ackroyd

The Venetians’ language and way of thinking set them aside from the rest of Italy. They are an island people, linked to the sea and to the tides rather than the land. This work from the incomparable Peter Ackroyd, like a magic gondola, transports its readers to that sensual and surprising city.  His account embraces facts and romance, conjuring up the atmosphere of the canals, bridges, and sunlit squares, the churches and the markets, the festivals and the flowers. He leads us through the history of the city, from the first refugees arriving in the mists of the lagoon in the fourth century to the rise of a great mercantile state and its trading empire, the wars against Napoleon, and the tourist invasions of today. Everything is here: the merchants on the Rialto and the Jews in the ghetto; the glassblowers of Murano; the carnival masks and the sad colonies of lepers; the artists - Bellini, Titian, Tintoretto, Tiepolo. And the ever-present undertone of Venice’s shadowy corners and dead ends, of prisons and punishment, wars and sieges, scandals and seductions.  Venice: Pure City is a study of Venice much in the vein of his lauded London: The Biography. History and context are provided in each chap­ter, but Ackroyd’s portrait of Venice is a particularly novelistic one, both beautiful and rapturous. 

Peter Ackroyd is the award-winning author of Thames; London: The Biography; Albion: The Origins of the English Imagination; Shakespeare; acclaimed biographies of T. S. Eliot, Charles Dickens, William Blake, and Sir Thomas More; several successful novels; and the series Ackroyd’s Brief Lives. 

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