Armistice of Cassibile

Document hastened end of World War II for Italy

Watched by Major-General Smith (right),
General Castellano signs the armistice

A secret agreement to end hostilities between Italy and the Allies during World War II was signed at Cassibile in Sicily on this day in 1943.

The Armistice of Cassibile was approved by both King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy and Pietro Badoglio, who was the serving Prime Minister of the country at the time. It was signed by Brigade General Giuseppe Castellano for Italy, and Major-General Walter Bedell Smith for the Allies.

The signing took place at a Sicilian military camp that had recently been occupied by the Allies, but the news about the agreement was not announced by Italy for another five days.

Germany responded to the announcement when it was made on September 8 by immediately attacking Italian forces in Italy, southern France, and the Balkans. 

And four days after the news of the armistice was made public, the Germans freed the ousted dictator Benito Mussolini from his captivity in the Hotel Campo Imperatore, which was situated on a remote plateau in the Gran Sasso mountain range in Abruzzo.

Mussolini had been deposed as leader by the Fascist Grand Council and arrested on the orders of Victor Emmanuel III on July 25, before being placed under house arrest at the mountain hotel.

In a daring mission, personally ordered by Adolf Hitler, German paratroopers used gliders to land on the mountain where Mussolini was being kept prisoner. They overwhelmed the Carabinieri officers guarding the dictator in the hotel and were able to take him away with them on a waiting aeroplane.

The freed dictator was flown to Vienna and then on to Munich. He was taken to meet Hitler at his headquarters in Poland, who put him in charge of a puppet state in the German-occupied area of northern Italy.

Pietro Badoglio, Mussolini's former chief
of staff, succeeded him as prime minister

Mussolini was to lead this state from his stronghold in Salò,  a resort on Lake Garda, until 1945, when he was caught by Italian partisans while attempting to escape to Switzerland and was immediately executed.

After the Armistice of Cassibile had been signed, the Germans forcefully disbanded the Italian army in the north and centre of the country. 

The King, members of the Italian government, and most of the Navy, went to southern Italy, where they were under the protection of the Allies, and an Italian resistance movement sprang up in the northern part of Italy that was still being occupied by the Germans.

When the Armistice of Cassibile was signed, the Allies held only Sicily and some minor Italian islands. But the day after the armistice was made public, on September 9, 1943, the Allies landed in Italy at Salerno and Taranto.

The agreement signed at Cassibile was considered to be the shorter version of the whole armistice document.

On September 29, 1943, the longer version of the armistice was signed at Malta between Italy and the Allies. It was ratified by Badoglio and Eisenhower aboard the British battleship HMS Nelson. The agreement included details such as a requirement that Mussolini and his Fascist officials be handed over to the United Nations, and that all Italian land, air, and naval forces must surrender unconditionally. 

The armistice signed at Malta was considered to be the Additional Conditions for the Armistice with Italy and it was known as the Long Armistice by the Italians. For the Allies, it was referred to as the Instrument of Surrender of Italy.

The war between the Allies and the Germans in Italy was to continue until May 1945.

The Allies established an airfield at Cassibile,
although the armistice was signed elsewhere

Travel tip:

Cassibile is a village in the comune - municipality - of Siracusa in Sicily, situated 18km (11 miles) from the city of Siracusa, and 21km (13 miles), from the beautiful Baroque city of Noto. The necropolis of Cassibile, which is spread over the hills on either side of the Cassibile river, consists of hundreds of rock cut chamber tombs dating back to the late Bronze and Iron Ages, about 1000 to 700 BC. In the 1960s, Fontane Bianche, on the Mediterranean Sea, was built as a seaside resort for Cassibile. There are  small railway stations at Cassibile and Fontane Bianche that are served by a single-track line from Siracusa. When operating, services take only a few minutes. Despite its significance in history, Cassibile did not have its own electricity supply until 1951, the arrival of which prompted the population of the village, whose economy was largely based on agriculture, to swell gradually from a few hundred at the time of the armistice to 5,800 at the census of 2001. In front of the church of San Giuseppe, there is a small memorial that commemorates the fallen of Cassibile during World War Two as well as marking the signing of the armistice.

Find accommodation in Cassibile with Hotels.com

Salò's Duomo, the Chiesa di Santa Maria Annunziata,
was built close to the shore of Lake Garda

Travel tip:

Salò, a town on the banks of Lake Garda, in the province of Brescia in Lombardy, has become famous for being the seat of government of the Italian Social Republic from 1943 to 1945, which was the Nazi-backed puppet state run by Benito Mussolini. The dictator lived in what is now the Grand Hotel Feltrinelli in Via Rimembranza in Gargnano. The resort has the longest promenade on Lake Garda and a Duomo, the Chiesa di Santa Maria Annunziata, which was built in Lake Gothic style in the 15th century to a design by the architect Filippo delle Vacche from Caravaggio in Lombardy. A museum - il Museo di Salò, also known as MuSa - opened in 2015 in la Chiesa di Santa Giustina in Via Brunati, which has exhibitions about the history of the town, including its brief period as a republic. Noted residents of Salò include Gasparo di Salò, one of the earliest violin makers, who was born there in 1542, and the 20th century film director Luigi Comencini. The poet, playwright and military leader Gabriele D’Annunzio had an estate a short distance away above the town of Gardone Riviera, with panoramic views over the lake.

Hotels in Salò from Expedia

More reading:

Palermo falls to the Allies at start of invasion

Mussolini removed from power and placed under arrest

Nazis free captive Mussolini in daring raid

Also on this day:

301: The founding of San Marino

1695: The birth of musician Pietro Locatelli

1895: The birth of Fascist ‘turncoat’ Giuseppe Bottai

1950: Giuseppe ‘Nino’ Farina becomes first F1 world champion

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2 September

Marie Josephine of Savoy

Italian noblewoman who became titular Queen of France

Marie Josephine Louise of Savoy, who married the future King Louis XVIII of France, was born Maria Giuseppina Luigia on this day in 1753 at the Royal Palace in Turin.  She became a Princess of France and Countess of Provence after her marriage, but died before her husband actually became the King of France.  Marie Josephine was the third child of prince Victor Amadeus of Savoy and Infanta Maria Antonio Ferdinanda of Spain.  Her paternal grandfather, Charles Emmanuel III, was King of Sardinia and so her parents were the Duke and Duchess of Savoy.  Her brothers were to become the last three Kings of Sardinia, the future Charles Emmanuel IV, Victor Emmanuel I and Charles Felix.  At the age of 17, Marie Josephine was married by proxy to Prince Louis Stanislas, Count of Provence, the younger brother of the ill-fated future King Louis XVI of France. Read more…

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Pietro Ferrero - baker and chocolatier

Humble beginnings of €20 billion company

Pietro Ferrero, the founder of the Ferrero chocolate and confectionery company, was born in Farigliano, a small town in Piedmont, on this day in 1898.  A baker by profession, he moved to nearby Alba in 1926 with his wife and young son, Michele, before deciding to try his luck in Turin, where in 1940 he opened a large pastry shop in Via Sant’Anselmo.  Trading conditions were tough, however, and the business was not a success.  The family returned to Alba in 1942, setting up a smaller bakery in Via Rattazzi, at the back of which Pietro created a kind of confectionery laboratory.  He had hit upon the idea of trying to find alternative materials from which to make products, largely because the high taxes on cocoa beans meant conventional chocolate-based pastries were expensive to make.   Hazelnuts, on the other hand, were plentiful in Piedmont.  Read more…

Andrea Illy – businessman and writer

Family dream was to make the best coffee in the world

Andrea Illy, who is the chairman of coffee makers illycaffè, was born on this day in 1964 in Trieste, the capital of Friuli Venezia Giulia.  The grandson of the founder of illycaffè, Francesco Illy, Andrea represents the third generation of his family to lead the business. His father, Ernesto Illy, was chairman between 1963 and 2004. His sister Anna and brothers Francesco and Riccardo - a former CEO now vice-president - Illy are on the board of directors.  Andrea graduated with a degree in Chemistry from the University of Trieste and went on to study at SDA Bocconi School of Management in Milan, Harvard Business School and Singularity University in Silicon Valley.  He joined the firm in 1990 as a supervisor of quality control. Inspired by Japanese business methods, Andrea started the Total Quality Programme, which established standards both for the company and the coffee industry. Read more…

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Giuliano Gemma – actor

Talented Roman became award-winning film star

Actor, stuntman and sculptor Giuliano Gemma was born on this day in 1938 in Rome.  He started working in the film industry as a stuntman but was then offered a real part in the film Arrivano i titani (The Titans Arrive), by director Duccio Tessari.  After this his career took off and he appeared in Luchino Visconti’s Il Gattopardo (The Leopard), as Garibaldi’s General.  Gemma starred in many spaghetti westerns, such as A Pistol for Ringo, Blood for a Silver Dollar, Wanted and Day of Anger. He sometimes appeared in the credits of the films under the name Montgomery Wood.  For his portrayal of Major Matiss in Valerio Zurlini’s The Desert of the Tartars, he won a David di Donatello award.  Gemma had many other film roles, often appeared on Italian television and also worked as a sculptor. His daughter, Vera Gemma, also became an actor.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: The French Revolution, by Christopher Hibbert

Concise, convincing and exciting, this is Christopher Hibbert's brilliant account of the events that shook 18th-century Europe to its foundation. With a mixture of lucid storytelling and fascinating detail, he charts the French Revolution from its beginnings at an impromptu meeting on an indoor tennis court at Versailles in 1789, right through to the 'coup d'etat' that brought Napoleon to power ten years later.  In the process he explains the drama and complexities of this epoch-making era in the compelling and accessible manner he has made his trademark. If you want to discover the captivating history of the period, The French Revolution is for you. Described as 'a spectacular replay of epic action' by Richard Holmes in The Times, the book earned effusive praise from The Good Book Guide, who called it 'unquestionably the best popular history of the French Revolution' to be written in the English language.

Christopher Hibbert was educated at Radley and Oriel College, Oxford. An infantry officer during World War Two, he was awarded the Military Cross in 1945. His many acclaimed books include The Destruction of Lord Raglan (which won the Heinemann Award for Literature in 1962), London: The Biography of a City, The Rise and Fall of the House of Medici, The Great Mutiny: India 1857, Garibaldi and His Enemies, and Rome: The Biography of a City. 

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1 September

Tullio Serafin – opera conductor

Toscanini’s successor furthered the career of Callas

The man who helped Maria Callas develop her singing talent, musician and conductor Tullio Serafin was born on this day in 1878 in Rottanova near Cavarzere in the Veneto, on the Adige river just south of the Venetian Lagoon.  Serafin studied music in Milan and went on to play the viola in the orchestra at Teatro alla Scala under the baton of Arturo Toscanini.  He was later appointed assistant conductor and then took over as musical director at the theatre when Toscanini left to go to New York.  Serafin conducted at La Scala between 1909 and 1914, from 1917 to 1918 and then returned briefly at the end of the Second World War.  He became a conductor at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in 1924 and stayed with them for ten years before returning to Italy to become artistic director at the Teatro Reale in Rome.  Read more…

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Michele Giuttari – crime writer and police officer

Cop-turned-novelist with inside knowledge of police investigations

Michele Giuttari, who headed the police in Florence and used his experience working on investigations into Mafia activities and dangerous criminals to become a successful crime writer, was born on this day in 1950 in Novara di Sicilia, a village in the province of Messina in Sicily.  After studying for a degree in Jurisprudence at the University of Messina, Giuttari qualified as a lawyer. He joined the Polizia di Stato as a commissario in 1978 and later rose through the ranks to take charge of the Florentine police between 1995 and 2003.  Giuttari first served in Calabria, where he held positions in the Squadra Mobile of Reggio Calabria and Cosenza. He then joined the Anti-Mafia investigation department and served first in Naples and then in Florence, where he became head of the Judicial Investigation section, and succeeded in jailing several key Mafia figures. Read more… 

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Scipione Borghese – Cardinal and art collector

Pope’s nephew used position to acquire wealth to buy art

Cardinal Scipione Borghese, who was a patron of Gian Lorenzo Bernini and Caravaggio and established a magnificent art collection during his life, was born on this day in 1576 in Artena just outside Rome.  As the nephew of Pope Paul V, Borghese was given the official title of Cardinal Nephew - cardinale nipote - and he had great power as the effective head of the Vatican government. He amassed an enormous fortune through the papal fees and taxes he gathered and he acquired vast amounts of land. He was able to use his immense wealth to assemble a large and impressive art collection.  When Cardinal Borghese’s father suffered financial difficulties, his uncle, Camillo Borghese, stepped in to pay for his education.  After Camillo Borghese was elected as Pope Paul V, he made his nephew a Cardinal and gave him the right to use the Borghese name. Read more…

Vittorio Gassman - actor

Stage and screen star once dubbed ‘Italy’s Olivier’

Vittorio Gassman, who is regarded as one of the finest actors in the history of Italian theatre and cinema, was born on this day in 1922 in Genoa.  Tall, dark and handsome in a way that made him a Hollywood producer’s dream, Gassman appeared in almost 150 movies but he was no mere matinée idol.  A highly respected stage actor, he possessed a mellifluous speaking voice, a magisterial presence and such range and versatility in his acting talent that the Hollywood columnist Sheilah Graham once called him ‘the Lawrence Olivier of Italy’.  He enjoyed a career that spanned five decades. Inevitably, he is best remembered for his screen roles, although by the time he made his movie debut in 1945, he had appeared in more than 40 productions of classic plays by Shakespeare, Aeschylus, Ibsen, Tennessee Williams, and others.  Read more… 

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Guido Deiro - vaudeville star

Accordion player who wowed America

The musician Guido Deiro, who was the first artist to become a star playing the piano-accordion, was born on this day in 1886 in an Alpine village north of Turin.  For a while, in the early part of the 20th century, he and his brother Pietro were among the highest-paid performers on the booming American vaudeville circuit. Using his stage name, which was simply ‘Deiro’, he made more than 110 recordings, which sold in large numbers.  He ‘covered’ many popular hits and well known classical and operatic pieces and wrote compositions of his own, the most famous of them the song Kismet, which became the theme song for the Broadway musical and was used in two film versions of the story, which was based on a play by Edward Knoblauch.  Deiro became something of a celebrity and was seldom short of glamorous female company.   Read more…

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Book of the Day: The New Book of Opera Anecdotes, by Ethan Mordden

Building on the success of his 1985  collection of Opera Anecdotes, Ethan Mordden's follow-up continues where the original left off, bringing into view a new corps of major singers such as Renee Fleming, Roberto Alagna, Deborah Voigt, Jonas Kaufmann and Kathleen Battle. There are also fresh adventures with opera's fabled greats - Rossini, Wagner, Toscanini (whose temper tantrums are always good for a story), Franco Corelli, Luciano Pavarotti and Leontyne Price (who, when the Met's Rudolf Bing offered her the voice-killing role of Abigaille in Verdi's Nabucco, said, "Man, are you crazy?"). While most of Mordden's anecdotes are humorous, some are emotionally touching, such as one recounting a Met production of Mozart's The Marriage Of Figaro in which Renee Fleming sang alongside her own six-year-old daughter. Witty, dramatic, and at times a little shocking, The New Book Of Opera Anecdotes will be a welcome addition to any opera fan's library.

Ethan Mordden, born in Pennsylvania and raised in Venice, Italy, and Long Island, New York, is an American author and musical theater scholar.

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31 August

Altiero Spinelli - political visionary

Drafted plan for European Union while in Fascist jail

Altiero Spinelli, a politician who is regarded as one of the founding fathers of the European Union, was born on this day in 1907 in Rome.  A lifelong Communist who was jailed for his opposition to the Fascist regime of Benito Mussolini, he spent much of the Second World War in confinement on the island of Ventotene in the Tyrrhenian Sea, one of an archipelago known as the Pontine Islands.  It was there that he and two prisoners, Ernesto Rossi and Eugenio Colorni, agreed that if the forces of Fascism in Italy and Germany were defeated, the only way to avoid future European wars was for the sovereign nations of the continent to join together in a federation.  The document they drew up, which became known as the Ventotene Manifesto, was the first document to argue for a European constitution and formed the basis for the Movimento Federalista Europeo, which Spinelli, Rossi and some 20 others launched at a secret meeting in Milan.  Read more…

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Luca Cordero di Montezemolo – aristocrat and businessman

Former driver who led Ferrari to Formula One success

Luca Cordero di Montezemolo, a former racing driver, chairman of Ferrari and Fiat and president of employers’ federation Confindustria, was born on this day in 1947 in Bologna.  He is one of the founders of NTV, an Italian company that is Europe’s first private, open access operator of 300km/h (186 mph) high-speed trains.  He retains an interest in motor sport as a director of McLaren Group Holdings Ltd. Montezemolo is a descendant of an aristocratic family from Piedmont, who served the Royal House of Savoy for generations. He is the youngest son of Massimo Cordero dei Marchesi di Montezemolo and Clotilde Neri, niece of the surgeon, Vincenzo Neri. His uncle was a commander in the Italian Navy in World War II and his grandfather and great grandfather were both Generals in the Italian Army.  He obtained a degree in law from Rome Sapienza University in 1971. Read more…

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Amilcare Ponchielli - opera composer

Success of La Gioconda put musician on map

The opera composer Amilcare Ponchielli was born on this day in 1834 in Paderno Fasolaro, near Cremona, about 100km south-east of Milan in what is now Lombardia.  Ponchielli's works in general enjoyed only modest success, despite the rich musical invention for which he was later applauded.  One that did win acclaim in his lifetime, however, was La Gioconda, which was first produced in 1876 and underwent several revisions but remained unaltered after 1880.  Well known for the tenor aria, Cielo e mar, and the ballet piece, Dance of the Hours, La Gioconda is the only opera by Ponchielli still performed today and many recordings have been made, featuring some of the biggest stars of recent times.  Maria Callas, Renata Tebaldi and Montserrat Caballé are among those to have played the role of Gioconda, written for soprano. Read more…

Gino Lucetti – failed assassin

Anarchist tried to kill Mussolini with grenade

Gino Lucetti, who acquired notoriety for attempting to assassinate Italy’s Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini in Rome in 1926, was born on this day in 1900. A lifelong anarchist, part of a collective of like-minded young men and women from Carrara in Tuscany, he planned to kill Mussolini on the basis that doing so would save the lives of thousands of potential future victims of the Fascist regime.  Lucetti hatched his plot while in exile in France, where he had fled after taking a Fascist bullet in the neck following an argument in a bar in Milan, clandestinely returning several times to Carrara to finalise the details.  After enlisting the help of other anarchists, notably Steffano Vatteroni, who worked as a tinsmith in Rome, and Leandro Sorio, a waiter originally from Brescia, he returned to Rome to carry out the attack.  Read more…

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Isabella de’ Medici – noblewoman

Tuscan beauty killed by her husband

Isabella Romola de’ Medici, the daughter of the first Grand Duke of Tuscany, was born on this day in 1542 in Florence.  She was said to have been beautiful, charming, educated and talented and was the favourite child of her father, Cosimo I de’ Medici.  But she died at the age of 33, believed to have been murdered by the husband her family had chosen for her to marry.  While Isabella was growing up she lived first in Palazzo Vecchio and later in Palazzo Pitti in Florence with her brothers and sisters. Her brother, Francesco, who was a year older than her, eventually succeeded his father as Grand Duke of Tuscany.  The Medici children were educated by tutors in classics, languages and the arts and Isabella particularly loved music.  When Isabella was 11 she was betrothed to 12-year-old Paolo Giordano Orsini, heir to the Duchy of Bracciano. Read more… 

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Book of the Day: Reinventing Europe: The History of the European Union, 1945 to the Present, edited by by Brigitte Leucht, Katja Seidel and Laurent Warlouzet

Reinventing Europe provides a thorough exploration of the history of the European Union, tracing its development from inception to recent times. It is the first book of its kind to contextualise the history of the EU within the wider frames of European and global history. The volume also breaks new ground by successfully highlighting the roles individuals, member states, transnational actors and European institutions played in both advancing and slowing down European integration in the EU. With chapters from leading academics in the UK, the US and across Europe who draw on sources in a variety of languages, the book presents a balanced and comprehensive account of this sometimes controversial Union. It is made up of three main parts which in turn cover: a narrative survey of the EU, an historical analysis of the key institutions and policies, critical themes and geographical spaces. 

Brigitte Leucht is Senior Lecturer in German and European Studies at the University of Portsmouth in England; Katja Seidel is Lecturer in History at the University of Westminster; and Laurent Warlouzet is Professor of History and Chair of European History at Paris-Sorbonne University. 

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30 August

Joe Petrosino - New York crime fighter

Campanian immigrant a key figure in war against Mafia

Joe Petrosino, a New York police officer who dedicated his life to fighting organised crime, was born Giuseppe Petrosino in Padula, a southern Italian town on the border of Campania and Basilicata, on this day in 1860.  The son of a tailor, Prospero Petrosino, he emigrated to the United States at the age of 12.  The family lived in subsidised accommodation in Mulberry Street, part of the area now known as Little Italy on the Lower East Side towards Brooklyn Bridge, where around half a million Italian immigrants lived in the second half of the 19th century.  Giuseppe took any job he could to help the family, at first as a newspaper boy and then shining shoes outside the police headquarters on Mulberry Street, where he would dream of becoming a police officer himself.  In 1878, by then fluent in English and known to everyone as Joe, Petrosino became an American citizen. Read more…

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Andrea Gabrieli - composer

Father of the Venetian School

The Venetian composer and organist Andrea Gabrieli, sometimes known as Andrea di Cannaregio, notable for his madrigals and large-scale choral works written for public ceremonies, died on this day in 1585.  His nephew, Giovanni Gabrieli, is more widely remembered yet Andrea, who was organist of the Basilica di San Marco – St Mark’s – for the last 19 years of his life, was a significant figure in his lifetime, the first member of the Venetian School of composers to achieve international renown. He was influential in spreading the Venetian style of music in Germany as well as in Italy.  Little is known about Andrea’s early life aside from the probability that he was born in the parish of San Geremia in Cannaregio and that he may have been a pupil of the Franco-Flemish composer Adrian Willaert, who was maestro di cappella at St Mark’s from 1527 until 1562.  Read more…

Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo – painter and printmaker

Famous artist’s son developed his own style

Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo, who became famous for his paintings of Venetian life and of the clown, Pulcinella, was born on this day in 1727 in Venice.  Also known as Giandomenico Tiepolo, he was one of the nine children born to the artist Giovanni Battista Tiepolo and his wife, Maria Guardi, the sister of painters Francesco and Giovanni Guardi. Perhaps not surprisingly, Giandomenico inherited the talent to go into the same profession as his father and uncles and, by the age of 13, he had become the elder Tiepolo’s chief assistant. His younger brother, Lorenzo, also became a painter and worked as an assistant to his father.  By the age of 20, Giandomenico was already producing his own work for commissions. However, he continued to accompany his father when he received his major commissions in Italy, Germany and Spain.  Read more…

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Emanuele Filiberto – Duke of Savoy

Ruler who made Turin the capital of Savoy

Emanuele Filiberto of Savoy, who was nicknamed testa di ferro (iron head) because of his military prowess, died on this day in 1580 in Turin.  After becoming Duke of Savoy he recovered most of the lands his father Charles III had lost to France and Spain and he restored economic stability to Savoy.  Emanuele Filiberto was born in 1528 in Chambery, now part of France. He grew up to become a skilled soldier and served in the army of the emperor Charles V, who was the brother-in-law of his mother, Beatrice of Portugal, during his war against Francis I of France. He distinguished himself by capturing Hesdin in northern France in July 1553.  When he succeeded his father a month later he began the reacquisition of his lands.  His brilliant victory over the French at Saint Quentin in northern France in 1557 on the side of the Spanish helped to consolidate his power in Savoy. Read more…

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Book of the Day: The Italian Squad: How the NYPD Took Down the Black Hand Extortion Racket, by Andrew Paul Mele

At the turn of the 20th century, thousands of Italian immigrants left their home country for the United States - New York City, in particular. A small minority of the immigrants were members of a criminal syndicate that largely victimized fellow immigrants. The most common crime was a type of extortion known as "Black Hand." The methods of extortion were particularly violent, and included kidnapping, arson, and murder. The New York Police Department, unable to speak the language and unaware of the traditions of the immigrants, was virtually helpless in dealing with them. In 1904, Italian-American Lt. Detective Joseph Petrosino formed a group of Italian detectives to deal exclusively with the extortion crimes and the criminal underworld of Italian society in New York which had become known in the American press as "The Black Hand Society." This book tells the story of The Italian Squad from its inception, through to Petrosino's death and the squad's expansion into Queens and Brooklyn.

Andrew Paul Mele was an American author who took up writing after he had retired from the Brooklyn Public Library. He wrote six books and several short stories, as well as articles for the Staten Island Advance and the Italian Tribune.

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29 August

NEW - Lucia Valentini Terrani - opera singer

Colaratura mezzo-soprano noted for velvety softness of agile voice

The opera singer Lucia Valentini Terrani, who became one of Italy’s most captivating mezzo-sopranos, blessed with an agile, velvety voice and magnetic stage presence, was born on this day in 1946 in Padua, in the Veneto region.  Equally at home in contralto roles, she was among the most notable interpreters of the 18th and 19th century bel canto repertoire and was a major influence on the way the Gaetano Rossini repertoire evolved over the last three decades of the 20th century.  After her debut in 1969 and breakthrough in 1973, Valentini Terrani sang at most of the world’s major opera houses, in South America and Russia as well as Europe and the United States.  Little is known about her early life in Padua before she attended the city’s Cesare Pollini Music Conservatory. From there she moved on to the Benedetto Marcello Conservatory in Venice. Read more…

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Ugo Nespolo - artist and designer

Painter and sculptor worked in theatre, advertising and literature

The contemporary artist Ugo Nespolo, whose broad range of work includes paintings and sculpture, theatre sets and costumes, advertising posters, book layouts, commercial designs and experimental films, was born on this day in 1941 in the village of Mosso Santa Maria in the Biellese Prealps, about 70km (43 miles) northeast of Turin. As well as an enormous output of artworks influenced by Pop Art, conceptual art and Arte Povera among others and numerous sculptures in glass and ceramic, Nespolo created unique set and costume designs for major opera and theatre productions and was associated with several prestigious advertising campaigns, including for the drinks manufacturer Campari and the chocolatier Caffarel.  Nespolo is described as having an insatiable artistic and intellectual appetite. Read more…

Tiziana ‘Tosca’ Donati - singer

Versatile performer whose range spans musicals to sacred songs

The singer Tiziana Donati, who performs under the stage name Tosca, was born on this day in 1967 in Rome.  Winner of the Sanremo Festival in 1996, Tosca has recorded 10 studio albums, released a similar number of singles and has recorded duets with many other artists.  She has enjoyed a successful stage career, appearing in numerous theatrical productions, and has been invited to perform songs for several movies, including the title track for Franco Zeffirelli’s version of Jane Eyre in 1996. She also sang and spoke the part of Anastasia in the Italian dubbed version of the Disney cartoon of the same name.  At Christmas in 1999, she participated in concerts in churches in Italy where she performed Latin songs set to music. Following this she began a collaboration with the Vatican, taking part in several televised events to commemorate the Jubilee of 2000. Read more…

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Libero Grassi - anti-Mafia hero

Businessman brutally murdered after refusing to pay

Libero Grassi, a Palermo clothing manufacturer, died on this day in 1991, shot three times in the head as he walked from his home to his car in Via Vittorio Alfieri, a street of apartment buildings not far from the historic centre, at 7.30am.  It was a classic Mafia hit to which there were no witnesses, at least none prepared to come forward. Such killings were not uncommon in the Sicilian capital as rival clans fought for control of different neighbourhoods.  Yet this one was different in that 67-year-old Grassi had no connection with the criminal underworld apart from his brave decision to stand up to their demands for protection money and refuse to pay.  Grassi owned a factory making underwear, which he sold in his own shop.  He employed 100 workers and his business had a healthy turnover. In a struggling economy, he was doing very well.  Read more…

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Leonardo De Lorenzo – flautist

Flair for the flute led to international career

Leonardo De Lorenzo, a brilliant flute player who passed on his knowledge of the instrument to others through his books, was born on this day in 1875 in Viggiano in the province of Potenza.  De Lorenzo started playing the flute at the age of eight and then moved to Naples to attend the music conservatory of San Pietro a Majella.  He became an itinerant flautist until he was 16, when he moved to America, where he worked in a hotel. He returned to Italy in 1896 to do his military service in Alessandria and became a member of a military band directed by Giovanni Moranzoni, whose son was to become a famous conductor of the orchestra at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.  De Lorenzo then began a career as a flautist and toured Italy, Germany, England and South Africa, joining an orchestra in Cape Town for a while. Read more…

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Book of the Day: Rossini: A Life, by Gaia Servadio

Rossini was without a doubt the most highly sought after composer of his time, in an age when opera was not only more popular than we can imagine, it was also a powerful political tool. For his many fans the tragic mystery of his life is why, after having written 39 operas, did he stop composing at just 32 years of age?  After the Napoleonic occupation the romantic movement swept Europe, and it is clear that Rossini is linked to both the neoclassical era and romanticism, caught between monarchies and revolutions, autocracy and liberalism. Following triumphant years in Italy, he encountered the greatness of romanticism in the Paris salons, where he met Victor Hugo, Honoré de Balzac and Eugéne Delacroix, among others. But by nature he was a depressive and had come to hate both the public and himself. With significant new material and previously unpublished letters, the author sheds a remarkable light on the mystery of Rossini's life. Rossini: A Life puts in context the composer's difficult childhood and impoverished family life, his women, the divas, his nervous illnesses and not least his wonderful creative intelligence.

Gaia Servadio was an Italian writer who was twice married to British castle owners. With the art historian William Mostyn-Owen, she resided at Aberuchill Castle, Perthshire, and then wed Hugh Robert Myddelton, owner of Chirk Castle in Wales. She was a prolific writer of novels and non-fiction.

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Lucia Valentini Terrani - opera singer

Colaratura mezzo-soprano noted for velvety softness of agile voice

Lucia Valentini Terrani in 1982: The singer had a
powerful stage presence as well as a brilliant voice 

The opera singer Lucia Valentini Terrani, who became one of Italy’s most captivating mezzo-sopranos, blessed with an agile, velvety voice and magnetic stage presence, was born on this day in 1946 in Padua, in the Veneto region.

Equally at home in contralto roles, she was among the most notable interpreters of the 18th and 19th century bel canto repertoire and was a major influence on the way the Gaetano Rossini repertoire evolved over the last three decades of the 20th century.

After her debut in 1969 and breakthrough in 1973, Valentini Terrani sang at most of the world’s major opera houses, in South America and Russia as well as Europe and the United States.

Little is known about her early life in Padua before she attended the city’s Cesare Pollini Music Conservatory. From there she moved to the Benedetto Marcello Conservatory in Venice, where she was a student under the former soprano Iris Adami Corradetti.

There, she laid the foundations for her career. At that point, she performed as Lucia Valentini, making her debut in 1969 in Brescia as Angelina in Rossini’s La Cenerentola, a role that would become her signature. 

With its demanding coloratura and nuanced comedy elements, La Cenerentola showcased Valentini’s vocal brilliance but also her theatrical finesse. 

Following her triumph in the International Competition for New Rossini Voices organised by the broadcaster Rai in 1972, her big breakthrough came in 1973, again in La Cenerentola, this time at Teatro alla Scala in Milan. Stepping in for Teresa Berganza, one of the most popular and admired mezzo-sopranos of the modern era, Valentini reprised the Angelina role to great acclaim. The performance effectively launched her international career.

Alberto Terrani said he was "spellbound
by the beauty of her face" when they met

It was around this time that she met Alberto Terrani, an actor, at a party in Padua. He described being “spellbound by the beauty of her face” and “enraptured by her voice when she started to sing.”

They fell in love and were married in 1973, at which point he gave up his own career to become her manager and she added his name to hers

Valentini Terrani’s artistry was deeply entwined with Rossini’s music. She mastered both his comic heroines and his more florid, serious roles, such as Arsace in Semiramide, Tancredi, and Malcolm in La donna del lago. 

The last three were so-called “trouser roles”, in which a male character is sung by a female singer. Valentini Terrani’s versatile, expressive and richly coloured voice allowed her to perform such roles with convincing masculinity and emotional depth. 

Yet her repertoire was not limited to Rossini and his genre. She also ventured into baroque opera, portraying Medea in Cavalli’s Giasone, Dido in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, and Bradamante in Handel’s Alcina, as well as dramatic and lyrical roles such as Eboli in Don Carlos, Carmen, Charlotte in Werther, and Quickly in Falstaff. 

Her international engagements took her to the Metropolitan Opera (debuting in 1975 as Isabella in L’italiana in Algeri), Covent Garden, Paris, Moscow, Buenos Aires, and beyond. 

Valentini Terrani's career was cut short
after she was diagnosed with leukemia

On her visits to Moscow, she embraced Russian opera, performing with distinction in Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex and Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov. 

Valentini Terrani’s career was cut short when she was diagnosed with leukemia in 1996. Encouraged by her friend and fellow opera singer José Carreras, who had recovered from the disease, she travelled to the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, where he had been treated successfully. Sadly, though, she died there in 1998 aged just 51, following complications from a bone marrow transplant.

Her legacy endures not only in recordings and memories but also in Padua, where a square near the Teatro Verdi bears her name.  There is also a small hotel in Padua, supported by charity, to accommodate hospital visitors and patients in need of repeated treatment, named the Casa di Accoglienza Lucia Valentini Terrani.

It was inspired by an act of generosity by the singer shortly before she died in Seattle, when she was so dismayed to find that the relatives of fellow patients were sleeping in their cars because accommodation was so expensive that she asked her husband to pay for their hotel rooms.

The Basilica di Sant'Antonio,
with its Byzantine domes

Travel tip:

Lucia Valentini Terrani’s home city of Padua, in Veneto, has a population of around 217,000. It is rich in history, art and architectural treasures. The biggest attractions for visitors include the Scrovegni Chapel, a medieval gem that houses a fresco cycle by Giotto often cited as the dawn of Renaissance painting; the Basilica of Saint’Antonio, notable for its Byzantine-style domes, that houses the relics of St. Anthony and features masterpieces by Donatello; the Palazzo della Ragione, once the seat of Padua’s medieval government and today a civic building with a bustling food market on the ground floor, the elegant Piazza dei Signori, with its beautiful Renaissance clock tower; and Prato della Valle, a vast oval space, built on the site of a former Roman amphitheatre and one of Europe’s largest public squares, which features statues of historic figures around a central island. 

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Brescia's Roman heritage is visible in the ruins
of the Tempio Capitolino in Piazza del Foro

Travel tip:

Brescia, where Valentini Terrani made her public debut, is a city in Lombardy midway between Bergamo and Verona often described as an underrated cultural gem, a mix of Roman and medieval heritage. The Santa Giulia Museum, housed in a former monastery and a UNESCO World Heritage, showcases Roman villas, medieval frescoes, and treasures such as the Desiderius Cross, while Brescia’s ancient heart includes the Capitolium Temple and Forum and other Roman remains that date back to 73AD. Perched on the Colle Cidneo, with panoramic views over the city, is the well-preserved Castello di Brescia.  In the centre of the city, the Piazza della Loggia is a Renaissance square with an astronomical clock and elegant arcades, while the Piazza Paolo VI is home to two cathedrals - the Duomo Vecchio and the Duomo Nuovo, bringing together Romanesque and Baroque styles side by side.  

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Also on this day:

1875: The birth of flautist Leonardo De Lorenzo

1941: The birth of artist and designer Ugo Nespolo

1967: The birth of Tiziana ‘Tosca’ Donati

1991: The Mafia murder of Palermo businessman Libero Grassi

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28 August

Lamberto Maggiorani - unlikely movie star

Factory worker who shot to fame in Bicycle Thieves

Lamberto Maggiorani, who found overnight fame after starring in the neorealist classic Bicycle Thieves (1948), was born on this day in 1909 in Rome.  Maggiorani was cast in the role of Antonio Ricci, a father desperate for work to support his family in post-War Rome, who is offered a job pasting posters to advertising hoardings but can take it only on condition that he has a bicycle – essential for moving around the city carrying his ladder and bucket.  He has one, but it has been pawned.  To retrieve it, his wife, Marie, strips the bed of her dowry sheets, which the pawn shop takes in exchange for the bicycle. They are happy, because Antonio has a job which will support her, their son Bruno and their new baby.  However, on his first day in the job the bicycle is stolen, snatched by a thief who waits for Antonio to climb to the top of his ladder before seizing his moment.  Read more…

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Elisabetta Sirani – artist

Sudden death of talented young woman shocked Bologna

The brilliant Baroque painter and printmaker Elisabetta Sirani died in unexplained circumstances at the age of 27 on this day in 1665 in Bologna. The body of the artist was carried to the Chapel of the Rosary in the Basilica of San Domenico in Bologna to be mourned, not just by her family, but by an entire community as she was loved and respected as an important female painter.  Elisabetta has been described as beautiful, focused and selfless and she became a symbol of the progressive city of Bologna, where the creativity of women was encouraged and they were able to express themselves through art and music.  Elisabetta’s father, Giovanni Andrea Sirani, was himself an artist and she was trained in his studio, although contemporary writers have recorded that he was reluctant to teach her to paint in the Bolognese style. Read more…

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Ugo Mulas - photographer

Images of street life in Milan and of New York art scene won acclaim

The photographer Ugo Mulas, much admired for the way he captured the street atmosphere of postwar Milan and for his portrayals of Andy Warhol and others in the Bohemian New York art scene of the 1960s, was born on this day in 1928 in Pozzolengo, a small town near the southern tip of Lake Garda.  At one time part of Milan’s fashion community, another of Mulas’s claims to fame is having been the photographer who discovered Veruschka, a German aristocrat who became part of the supermodel generation of Twiggy and Jean Shrimpton in the 60s.  Known for his meticulous approach to composition and lighting, and for the candid, spontaneous style of his work, illness denied Mulas a long life but he is widely seen as a pioneering figure in photography who had a profound impact on the art form.  Read more…

Giovanni Maria Benzoni - sculptor

Roman collectors called him the ‘new Canova’

The sculptor Giovanni Maria Benzoni, who earned such fame in Rome in the mid-19th century that collectors and arts patrons in the city dubbed him the “new Canova” after the great Neoclassical sculptor Antonio Canova, was born on this day in 1809 in Songavazzo, a small mountain village in northern Lombardy.  Benzoni sculpted many allegorical and mythological scenes, but also busts and funerary monuments.  Songavazzo being just outside Clusone in the province of Bergamo, Benzoni was regarded as a bergamasco - a native of the ancient city - even though he spent much of his life in Rome.  As such he was held in similar regard to bergamaschi celebrities such as the composer Gaetano Donizetti, the philologist Cardinal Angelo Mai and the painter Francesco Coghetti, all of whom lived in Rome during Benzoni’s time there.  Read more…

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Maurizio Costanzo - talk show host

Journalist whose show was the longest running on Italian TV

Talk show host and writer Maurizio Costanzo was born on this day in 1938 in Rome. Costanzo spent more than 40 years in television.  His eponymous programme, the Maurizio Costanzo Show, broke all records for longevity in Italian television.  Launched on September 18, 1982, the current affairs programme continued for 27 years, alternating between Rete 4 and Canale 5, two of Italy's commercial television networks, part of the Mediaset group owned by former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.  Its run came to an end in 2009 but was relaunched on the satellite channel Mediaset Extra in 2014 and returned to terrestrial television in 2015, again on Rete 4.  Costanzo began his media career in print journalism with the Rome newspaper Paese Sera at just 18 years old and by the time he was 22 he was in charge of the Rome office of the mass circulation magazine Grazia. Read more… 

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Book of the Day: Vittorio De Sica. The Art of Stage and Screen, by Flavio De Bernardinis

Vittorio De Sica was a unique film artist. While Rossellini and Visconti came into being with neorealism, De Sica matured through neorealism. As an already established artist, he put himself wholly on the line and played a gambit that revolutionised Italian and world cinema. From 1923, the year he made his debut in a minor role with Tatiana Pavlova’s theatre company, and over the following 20 years of his career in Italian theatre and cinema, he sowed the seeds of the neorealism that would lead to his 1943 I bambini ci guardano (The Children are Watching Us). Vittorio De Sica: The Art of Stage and Screen tells his whole story, before, during and after neorealism. From the early days in theatre to his role behind the camera, De Sica’s career straddles an era that included the decline of the theatre of the great stars of the 19th century, the “talkies”, songs and gramophone records, up to the formidable season of Sciuscià (Ragazzi) (Shoeshine, 1946) and Ladri di biciclette (Bicycle Thieves, 1948). This is what makes De Sica unique. He was an actor, singer, and director. He was at home with serious repertory as well as light and comic repertoires, ultimately scaling the heights of the art of cinema. To tell De Sica’s story is also to narrate how the young Italy, a kingdom that had been united for only 50 years, aimed to represent itself in the theatre and on screen.  De Sica was a unique figure in this representation of the ethos of Italy, its customs and traditions, its strengths and weaknesses, its glories and its miseries. 

Flavio De Bernardinis (Rome, 1957) is a scholar of the history and aesthetics of cinema and entertainment. He is the author of L’arte secondo Kubrick (2003) and Arte cinematografica: il ciclo storico del cinema da Argan a Scorsese (2017). He teaches Film History and the Analysis of Film Language at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia, in Rome. 

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