22 January

Giuseppe Musolino - brigand

Vengeful killer who became an unlikely folk hero

Giuseppe Musolino, the Calabrian bandit whose fight for justice after a wrongful conviction turned him into a folk hero despite the multiple murders he committed in a quest for vengeance, died on this day in 1956 in a psychiatric hospital in Reggio Calabria.  He was 79 years old when he passed away, having been just 22 when he was sentenced to 21 years in prison for an attempted murder he swore he did not commit, with the evidence against him no better than circumstantial.  He escaped after just three months and embarked upon a killing spree in which he may have murdered as many as nine individuals and attempted the murder of several others, all of whom had played a part in what he saw as a corrupt trial.  The revenge killings took place during his two years and nine months on the run, during which Calabrians had taken to him as a symbolic figure. Read more…

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The Battle of Anzio

Key moment in World War II brought heavy casualties

British and American troops landed on the beach at Anzio, a coastal town south of Rome in the region of Lazio, in the early hours of the morning on this day in 1944.  The Allies were planning to dislodge German troops blocking the route to Rome and to liberate the capital city quickly, but the Battle of Anzio was to last for many months and cause the deaths of thousands of soldiers on both sides.  Operation Shingle, the name for the complex amphibious landing, had been the idea of the British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, as he lay in bed recovering from pneumonia in December 1943. His concept was to land two divisions of men at Anzio, and nearby Nettuno, bypassing the German forces entrenched across the Gustav Line in central Italy, to enable the Allies to take Rome.  But the operation was opposed by German troops, as well as forces from the newly-created Italian Social Republic. Read more...

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Papal Swiss Guard

Colourful uniforms camouflage highly trained security professionals

The Pope’s Swiss Guard was founded on this day in Vatican City in 1506.  A contingent of guards from Switzerland has continued to guard the Pope from that day to present times and it is one of the oldest military units still in existence.  The Swiss had been producing mercenary soldiers for hundreds of years with a reputation for loyalty and good discipline.  In the 15th century they were known for their good battle tactics and were employed by many European armies.  Pope Julius II ordered the first Swiss troops to guard the Vatican and they arrived in Rome on 22 January, 1506, the official date now given for the foundation of the Papal Swiss Guard.  The Pope later gave them the title ‘Defenders of the Church’s freedom’.  Recruits to the Pope’s Swiss Guard unit have to be Catholic men of Swiss nationality who have completed military training and can produce evidence of their good conduct. Read more…

Carlo Orelli – soldier

The last trench infantryman

Carlo Orelli, the last surviving Italian soldier to have served at the start of Italy's involvement in the First World War, died on this day in 2005 at the age of 110.  Orelli had signed up for active duty at the age of 21 and joined the Austro-Hungarian front after Italy joined the war on the side of Britain, France and Russia in May 1915.  He took part in combat operations near Trieste, experiencing the brutality of trench warfare and seeing many of his friends die violent deaths, but after receiving injuries to his leg and ear he spent the rest of the war in hospital.  Orelli was born in Perugia in 1894, but his family moved to Rome, where he was to spend most of the rest of his life living in the Garbatella district.  He came from a military background and had a grandfather who had helped to defend Perugia against Austrian mercenaries in 1849.  Read more…

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Frankie Yale - gang boss

Mobster who employed a young Al Capone

The gang boss who gave Al Capone one of his first jobs was born on this day in 1893 in Longobucco in Calabria.  Francesco Ioele, who would later become known as Frankie Yale, moved to the United States in around 1900, his family settling into the lower Manhattan area of New York City.  Growing up, Ioele was befriended by another southern Italian immigrant, John Torrio, who introduced him to the Five Points Gang, which was one of the most dominant street gangs in New York in the early part of the 20th century.  In time, Ioele graduated from petty street crime and violent gang fights to racketeering, changing his name to Yale to make him sound more American and taking control of the ice delivery trade in Brooklyn.  With the profits Yale opened a waterfront bar on Coney Island, which was called the Harvard Inn. It was there that he took on a young Capone as a bouncer. Read more…

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Antonio Todde - supercentenarian

Sardinian shepherd holds record as oldest Italian man in history

Antonio Todde, who was the oldest living man in the world before he died at the age of 112 years 346 days in 2002 and remains the oldest Italian man in history, was born on this day in 1889 in Tiana, a mountain village in Sardinia.  There are 19 other Italians who have attained a higher age, but all are women. Maria Giuseppa Robucci, from Apulia, died in 2019 at the age of 116 years 90 days. Emma Morano, from Piedmont, who died in 2017 aged 117 years 137 days, remains the oldest Italian of all time.  Todde was the world’s most senior male centenarian from the death of the American John Painter on March 1, 2001 until his own death 10 months later.  He was born to a poor shepherd family in Tiana, about 140km (87 miles) north of Cagliari in the Gennargentu mountains, about 55km (34 miles) southwest of the provincial capital, Nuoro.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: King of the Mountains: The Remarkable Story of Giuseppe Musolino, Italy's Most Famous Outlaw, by Dan Possumato

In 1897, a young Calabrian peasant named Giuseppe Musolino was sentenced to 21 years of hard labour for a crime he did not commit. However, defying all odds, he orchestrated a daring escape and embarked on a relentless pursuit of those responsible for his wrongful conviction, exacting a chilling and deadly retribution.  Evading capture for nearly three years, he cunningly outmanoeuvred a vast manhunt consisting of hundreds of local and regional police, the Carabinieri, and even an Italian Army regiment. As Possumato details in King of the Mountains, Musolino's exploits transformed him into a beloved Robin Hood figure among the inhabitants of the mezzogiorno, the impoverished southern region of Italy. However, to the authorities, he was a cold-blooded murderer who had to be stopped.  Eventually apprehended, the Ministry of Justice relocated his trial 600 miles to the north, from Reggio di Calabria to Lucca, due to its belief that no jury in the south would convict him. The trial captured the attention of newspapers around the world. When Giuseppe Musolino passed away in 1956, half a century after his capture, TIME magazine aptly remarked: "Few adventurers, past or present, have become so legendary in so short a time." 

Dan Possumato is a retired US Army administrative officer and a former special investigator for the Department of State. Dan's grandfather, Giovanni Musolino, was a first cousin of Giuseppe Musolino. Dan currently lives in Maine with his wife, Ellen.

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21 January

Gennaro Contaldo – chef

TV cook is passionate about Amalfi’s speciality dishes

Celebrity chef Gennaro Contaldo was born on this day in 1949 in Minori in Campania.  Contaldo has made many appearances on British television alongside chefs such as the late Antonio Carluccio, Jamie Oliver and James Martin and he has also brought out several cook books.  It is well documented that he is the man responsible for inspiring Jamie Oliver’s interest in Italian food.  Contaldo grew up in the small seaside town of Minori near Amalfi and is a passionate advocate of the style of cooking in the area, cucina amalfitana.  From an early age he was interested in dishes cooked with local produce, going out to collect wild herbs for his mother, and he began helping out in local restaurants at the age of eight.  Contaldo moved to Britain in the late 1960s and travelled around the country working in village restaurants. Read more…

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Giuseppe Savoldi - footballer

The world’s first £1 million player

Giuseppe Savoldi, whose transfer from Bologna to Napoli in 1975 made him the first footballer in the world to be bought for £1 million, was born on this day in 1947 in Gorlago, a municipality a short distance from the city of Bergamo in Lombardy.  A prolific striker, Savoldi’s big-money deal came four years ahead of the much heralded £1 million transfer of another striker, Trevor Francis, from Birmingham City to Nottingham Forest, which made him the first player in Britain to move for a seven-figure sum.  Napoli, who saw Savoldi as the last component in what they hoped would be a title-winning team, paid 1.4 billion lire in cash, plus two players, Sergio Clerici and Romario Rampanti, to secure his signature. The two players were valued at 600 million lire in total, which valued Savoldi at 2 billion lire, the equivalent at the time of about £1.2 million. Read more…

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Antonio Janigro - conductor and cellist

Musician who found ‘accidental’ fame in Yugoslavia

The conductor and cellist Antonio Janigro, who spent more than two decades as an orchestra leader in Zagreb, Yugoslavia, was born on this day in 1918 in Milan.  An accomplished cello soloist in Italy, his adventure in Yugoslavia happened by accident, in a way.  He was on holiday there in 1939 when the Second World War began, leaving him stranded with no prospect of returning home.  Happily, Zagreb Conservatory offered Janigro a job as professor of cello and chamber music. This turned out to be a providential turn of fate and he was to remain in Yugoslavia for much of his life.  He founded the school of modern cello playing in Yugoslavia, formed the exemplary chamber orchestra I Solisti di Zagreb with Dragutin Hrdjok in 1954 and for 10 years led the Radio Zagreb symphony orchestra. Raised in a house on the Via Guido d’Arezzo in Milan, Janigro was born in a musical family. Read more…

Pietro Rava - World Cup winner

Defender was the last survivor from Azzurri of 1938

Pietro Rava, who was the last survivor of Italy's 1938 World Cup-winning football team when he died in December 2006, was born on this day in 1916 at Cassine in Piedmont.  A powerful defender who could play at full back or in a central position, Rava won 30 caps for the national team between 1935 and 1946, finishing on the losing side only once and being made captain in 1940.  He was also a member of the Italy team that won the gold medal in the football competition at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin.  At club level, he spent most of his career with Juventus, forming a formidable defensive partnership with Alfredo Foni, alongside whom he also lined up in the national side.  Rava won a Championship medal in 1949-50, his final season at Juventus, although by then he had fallen out of favour with Jesse Carver, the Turin club's English coach, and made only six appearances, moving to Novara the following year.  Read more…

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Camillo Golgi – neuroscientist

Nobel prize winner whose name lives on in medical science

Camillo Golgi, who is recognised as the greatest neuroscientist and biologist of his time, died on this day in 1926 in Pavia.  He was well known for his research into the central nervous system and discovering a staining technique for studying tissue, sometimes called Golgi’s method, or Golgi’s staining.  In 1906, Golgi and a Spanish biologist, Santiago Ramon y Cajal, were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in recognition of their work on the structure of the nervous system.  Golgi was born in 1843 in Corteno, a village in the province of Brescia in Lombardy. The village was later renamed Corteno Golgi in his honour.  In 1860 Golgi went to the University of Pavia to study medicine. After graduating in 1865 he worked in a hospital for the Italian army and as part of a team investigating a cholera epidemic in the area around Pavia. Read more…

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Book of the Day: Gennaro's Cucina: Hearty Money-Saving Meals from an Italian Kitchen, by Gennaro Contaldo

‘Cucina povera’ is the food that traditionally fed the poor of Italy yet remains the basis of most Italian dishes we love to eat today. It’s a simple philosophy – delicious, hearty meals using accessible and affordable ingredients.  Along with the majority of post-war Italian families, the young Gennaro Contaldo’s was raised on a diet harvested on a limited budget. Restricted choice of scarce ingredients meant they learnt the value of what they had, how to cook dishes lovingly and use imaginative methods of preservation to make simple dishes go far: including salting, drying and curing.  With tips and ideas of what to do with leftovers, Gennaro helps home cooks squeeze maximum use from the ‘cucina povera’ ethos, turning humble ingredients into nourishing feasts without sacrificing taste. From Sicilian chickpea fritters to lentil soups and bread salads – to more elaborate filled vegetables, delicious ‘poor-man’s’ ricotta dumplings and simple sweet biscotti, Gennaro's Cucina will transform the way you shop, cook and eat.

Gennaro Contaldo was born in Minori on the Amalfi coast, where he first started helping in local restaurant kitchens at the age of eight. He came to Britain in the late 1960s and spent his first years travelling around the country, working in local village restaurants and studying wild food. He then moved to London where he worked as a chef in a number of restaurants before opening the award-winning 'Passione'.

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20 January

Federico Fellini – film director

The cinematic legacy of Rimini’s most famous son

Federico Fellini, one of the most influential filmmakers of the 20th century, was born on this day in Rimini in 1920.  He had a career lasting almost 50 years and his films were nominated for 12 Academy Awards. He won four Oscars, each for Best Foreign Language Film, with La strada, Nights of Cabiria, 8½ and Amarcord.  Fellini initially went to Rome to study Law at university but ended up working as a journalist instead.  His assignments for a magazine gave him the opportunity to meet people involved in show business and he eventually got work as a script writer for films and radio.  Fellini worked as both a screenwriter and assistant director on Roberto Rossellini films as well as producing and directing for other filmmakers. He began work on his first solo film, The White Sheik, in 1951. It received mixed reviews but in 1953 his film, I vitelloni, pleased both the public and the critics.  Read more…

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Ennio Porrino - composer

Premature death robbed Italian music of great talent

The composer Ennio Porrino, best known for his symphonic poem, Sardegna, and his opera, I Shardana, was born on this day in 1910 in Cagliari.  Porrino was critically acclaimed, his operas earning comparisons with the great Giacomo Puccini, although to some his reputation has been tarnished by his association with Benito Mussolini’s Fascist regime. He was only 49 when he died in Rome.  His 1941 opera, Gli Orazi, has been interpreted as a ‘hymn to fascism’ by some critics, while his piece, The March of the Volunteer, was used by Mussolini’s short-lived Italian Social Republic as its anthem.  Little is known of Porrino’s early years. It is thought that his family moved to Rome when he was a small child and most accounts of his life begin with his studies at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, which he attended from the age of 17. Read more…

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Franca Sozzani – magazine editor

Risk taker who turned Vogue Italia into a major voice

Franca Sozzani, the journalist who was editor-in-chief of the Italian edition of Vogue magazine for 28 years, was born on this day in 1950 in Mantua.  Under her stewardship, Vogue Italia was transformed from what she saw as little more than a characterless clothing catalogue for the Milan fashion giants to one of the edgiest publications the style shelves of the newsstands had ever seen.  Sozzani used high-end fashion and the catwalk stars to make bold and sometimes outrageous statements on the world issues she cared about, creating shockwaves through the industry but often selling so many copies that editions sometimes sold out even on second or third reprints.  It meant that advertisers who backed off in horror in the early days of her tenure clamoured to buy space again, particularly when the magazine began to attract a following even outside Italy.  Read more…

Marco Simoncelli - motorcycle world champion

Young rider whose career ended in tragedy

The motorcycle racer Marco Simoncelli, who is part of an illustrious roll call of Italian world champions headed by Giacomo Agostini and Valentino Rossi, was born on this day in 1987 in Cattolica on the Adriatic coast.  Simoncelli, who was European 125cc champion in 2002 in only his second year of senior competition, became 250cc world champion in 2008 when he won six races riding for Gilera.  He had dreams of emulating Rossi, winner of the 250cc world title in 1999, in going on to be a force in the premier MotoGP category, in which the latter has been world champion seven times, just one fewer than Agostini's record eight titles.  But after stepping up to MotoGP in 2010, Simoncelli suffered a fatal crash at the Malaysian Grand Prix in October the following year, killed at the age of just 24.  On only the second lap of the Sepang circuit, he lost control of his Honda at a corner.  Read more…

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Rafael Bombelli – mathematician

First person to explain algebra in simple language

Rafael Bombelli, the mathematician regarded as the inventor of complex numbers, was baptised and was also probably born on this day in 1526 near Bologna.  He wrote a book about algebra in simple language that could be understood by everyone, giving a comprehensive account of what was known about the subject at the time. The first three volumes, published in 1572, were the first European texts to explain how to perform computations with negative numbers.  Rafael Bombelli was the eldest son of Antonio Mazzoli, a wool merchant, who had changed his name to Bombelli to disassociate himself from the reputation of his family. His grandfather had taken part in a failed attempt to seize Bologna on behalf of the Bentivoglio family but had been caught and executed. Antonio Mazzoli was able to return to Bologna only after changing his name to Bombelli. Read more…

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Book of the Day: The Films of Federico Fellini (Cambridge Film Classics), by Peter Bondanella

The Films of Federico Fellini examines the career of one of Italy's most renowned filmmakers through close analysis of five masterpieces that span his career: La strada, La dolce vita, 8 1/2, Amarcord and Interview. Providing an overview of Fellini's early career as a cartoonist and scriptwriter for neorealist directors such as Roberto Rossellini, this study traces the development of Fellini's unique and personal cinematic vision as it transcends Italian neorealism. Rejecting an overtly ideological approach to Fellini's cinema, Bondanella emphasizes the director's interest in fantasy, the irrational and individualism.

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19 January

Paolo Borsellino - anti-Mafia judge

Magistrate slain by Mafia 57 days after colleague Giovanni Falcone

Paolo Borsellino, the judge who was helping to wage a successful war against the Sicilian Mafia when he was murdered in 1992, was born on this day in 1940 in Palermo.  He and his boyhood friend, Giovanni Falcone, became the most prominent members of a pool of anti-Mafia magistrates set up in the 1980s to investigate organised crime and share information. They made considerable progress in weakening the Sicilian Mafia, also known as Cosa Nostra, in particular through the so-called Maxi Trial of 1986-87, which resulted in 360 convictions and prison sentences totalling 2,665 years.  Yet both were killed within the space of two months, Falcone on May 23 by a bomb placed under the motorway between Sicilian capital Palermo and the city's airport, Borsellino on July 19 by a car bomb as he left his mother's house in the centre of the city.  Read more…

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Il trovatore – opera

Verdi masterpiece is regularly performed all over the world 

One of the most successful operas composed by Giuseppe Verdi, Il trovatore was first staged on this day in 1853 in Rome.  The four act opera was based on a play by Antonio Garcia Gutiérrez about a troubadour, the son of a gypsy woman, who is in love with a lady in waiting at a Spanish castle.  After its premiere, at the Teatro Apollo in Rome, the opera became a big success and in the first three years there were 229 productions of it worldwide. In Naples alone there were 11 different productions in six theatres, including Teatro San Carlo, during the first three years. The opera was first performed in America by the Max Maretzek Opera Company in 1855. The Metropolitan Opera in New York have performed it more than 600 times since it was first staged there in 1883.  Verdi was asked to prepare a French version of the opera in 1855, Le Trouvère, and to include music for a ballet. Read more…

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Rosina Storchio - soprano

Star prospered despite Butterfly debut flop

The soprano Rosina Storchio, a major star of the opera world in the early 20th century, was born on this day in 1872 in Venice.  A favourite of the celebrated conductor Arturo Toscanini, with whom she had an affair that scandalised Milan, she sang opposite Enrico Caruso and other male stars of her era, including Giuseppe Anselmi, Titta Ruffo and the Russian, Fyodor Chaliapin.  She sang in five notable premieres.  Ruggero Leoncavallo cast her as the first Mimì in his version of La bohème (1897) and also as Zazà in the opera of the same name (1900), Umberto Giordano created the role of Stephana for her in Siberia (1903), while she was Pietro Mascagni’s first Lodoletta (1917).  The first night for which she was often remembered, however, was the one that turned into a personal catastrophe for Giacomo Puccini, when Madama Butterfly was unveiled in Milan in 1904. Read more…

Giuseppe Bonomi - architect

Roman who became famous for English country houses

The architect Giuseppe Bonomi, who became better known by his Anglicised name Joseph Bonomi after spending much of his working life in England, was born on this day in 1739 in Rome.  Records nowadays refer to him as Joseph Bonomi the Elder, to distinguish him from his son of the same name, who became a sculptor, artist and Egyptologist of some standing and tends to be described as Joseph Bonomi the Younger.   Joseph Bonomi the Elder is known primarily for designing a number of English country houses in the last two decades of the 18th century and the early years of the 19th.  Among these are Lambton Castle in County Durham, Barrells Hall in Warwickshire, Longford Hall in Shropshire and Laverstoke House in Hampshire.  He also designed the saloon in the grand house of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu in Portman Square in London. Read more…

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Assunta ‘Pupetta’ Maresca – camorrista

Ex-beauty queen who avenged death of husband

Assunta Maresca, the mobster’s wife who made headlines around the world when she walked into a bar in Naples in broad daylight and shot dead the man she suspected of ordering the murder of her husband on behalf of the Neapolitan Mafia - the Camorra - was born on this day in 1935 in the coastal town of Castellammare di Stabia.  Better known as ‘Pupetta’ – the little doll – on account of her small stature and stunning good looks, Maresca took the law into her own hands after her husband – a young and ambitious camorrista and the father of her unborn child - was assassinated on the orders of a rival.  Her extraordinary act brought her an 18-year prison sentence, of which she served about a third, yet made her a figure of such public fascination that several movies and TV series were made about her life.  Read more… 

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Giuseppe Millico - opera singer, composer and teacher

Castrato taught Lord Nelson’s lover

The castrato opera singer and composer Giuseppe Millico, who numbered Lord Nelson’s future lover, Emma Hamilton, as among his pupils as a singing teacher in Naples, was born on this day in 1737 in Terlizzi, a town in Apulia.  As a singer, Millico is best remembered for his performances in the operas of the Bavarian composer Christoph Willibald Gluck. He also compiled a significant body of work of his own, including eight operas, eight cantatas, numerous arias and duets not part of wider works, and 82 canzonets.  Having learned his craft in Naples in the 1750s, Millico returned to the city in 1780 after many years of touring, becoming a teacher as well as a composer. He taught singing to the Bourbon princesses Maria Teresa and Luisa Maria, as well as to Emma, Lady Hamilton, the actress and model, who was living in Naples after her marriage to Sir William Hamilton, the British Ambassador.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Vendetta: The Mafia, Judge Falcone and the Quest for Justice, by John Follain

On May 23, 1992 the Mafia assassinated its 'Number One Enemy', the legendary prosecutor Judge Falcone, with a motorway bomb that also killed his wife Francesca and three bodyguards. Fifty-seven days later, the Mafia killed Falcone's friend and colleague, Judge Paolo Borsellino, with a car bomb outside his mother's home that also killed five bodyguards. These two murders changed forever how Italy viewed the Mafia. Vendetta tells the inside story of the assassination plots and the investigation that followed. Follain reveals Borsellino's desperate race against time to find out who killed his friend while knowing he was next on the list and reveals the daring undercover police mission which unmasked the killers.  Based on new and exclusive interviews and the testimony of investigators, Mafia supergrasses, survivors, relatives and friends, Vendetta recounts the events hour-by-hour, minute-by-minute as the Mafiosi plan and carry out the murders, and as the police hunt them down.

John Follain is an editor for European government news at Bloomberg. He was previously a reporter for Bloomberg, and a correspondent for the Sunday Times based in Paris and in Rome, covering events across Europe. He was also a correspondent for Reuters based in Paris and Rome. As well as Vendetta, he has written eight non-fiction books including the award-winning Zoya's Story, an international bestseller, and Death in Perugia: The Definitive Account of the Meredith Kercher Case.

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18 January

NEW - Austria takes control of Venice

Soldiers restored calm but became unpopular with the Venetians 

Austrian troops took over Venice and her territories on this day in 1798 and put an end to the destruction and looting caused by Napoleon Bonaparte’s soldiers in the city.  The Venetian Republic had proclaimed itself neutral during the Napoleonic Wars, knowing it could not afford to get involved in conflict. But Napoleon wanted to acquire the city anyway, and in May 1797 had provoked the Venetians into attacking a French ship, which he then used as an excuse to declare war against Venice.  The Venetian Grand Council and the last of its Doges, Ludovico Manin, voted the Republic out of existence and surrendered, putting the city under French rule. It was humiliating for Venice as it was the first time foreign troops had occupied the city in its 1,100 years of history.  But worse was to come as the French soldiers began systematically stripping Venice of its assets. Read more… 

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Alfredo Ildefonso Schuster – Cardinal

Blessed monk who tried to preach humility to Mussolini

Alfredo Ildefonso Schuster, who was a Benedictine monk and served as Cardinal and Archbishop of Milan during World War II, was born on this day in 1880 in Rome.  Towards the end of the war, Schuster attempted to arrange a truce between Mussolini and the partisans, but failed because Mussolini refused to accept the demands for total surrender made by the partisan delegates.  During the unsuccessful meeting between Mussolini and the partisans in the Archbishop’s Palace in Milan, Schuster is reported to have made an attempt to preach humility to the Fascist leader. More than 40 years after his death, Cardinal Schuster was beatified on 12 May 1996 by Pope John Paul II.  Schuster was the son of a Bavarian tailor who had moved to live in Rome and he served as an altar boy at a German Church near St Peter’s Basilica.  Read more…

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Katia Ricciarelli - operatic soprano

Star whose peak years were in ‘70s and ‘80s

The opera singer Katia Ricciarelli, who at her peak was seen as soprano who combined a voice of sweet timbre with engaging stage presence, was born on this day in 1946 at Rovigo in the Veneto.  She rose to fame quickly after making her professional debut as Mimi in Giacomo Puccini’s La bohème in Mantua in 1969 and in the 1970s was in demand for the major soprano roles.  Between 1972 and 1975, Ricciarelli sang at all the major European and American opera houses, including Lyric Opera of Chicago (1972), Teatro alla Scala in Milan (1973), the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden (1974) and the Metropolitan Opera (1975).  In 1981, she began an association with the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro that she maintained throughout the ‘80s.  In addition to her opera performances, Ricciarelli also appeared in a number of films.  She was Desdemona in Franco Zeffirelli's film version of Giuseppe Verdi's Otello in 1986, alongside Plácido Domingo. Read more…

Forza Italia - political party

Movement that gave media magnate Silvio Berlusconi political power

The shape of Italy’s political landscape changed on this day in 1994 with the launch of the Forza Italia party, whose leader, the wealthy media magnate Silvio Berlusconi, served as Italy’s prime minister three times. Work had been going on behind the scenes to lay the foundations of the party for several months, going back to Berlusconi and a group of friends and business colleagues meeting in a notary’s office in Milan in June 1993 to give legal status to what was called the Forza Italia Association for Good Government.  By November, a network of Forza Italia Clubs was established, quickly attracting many thousands of members. Details of this network appeared in the media, although Berlusconi denied that they were branches of a political party - despite news in December that an address on Via dell'Umiltà in Rome had been registered as Forza Italia headquarters. Read more…

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Alfonso Ferrabosco the elder – musician

Court composer suspected of being a spy

Alfonso Ferrabosco, the composer who first introduced the madrigal to England, was born on this day in Bologna in 1543.  As well as composing music for Queen Elizabeth I of England, he was also suspected of working as a spy for her.  Ferrabosco had been born into a family of musicians and travelled about in Italy and France while he was young with his father and uncle.  He went to England in 1562 with his uncle and found employment with Elizabeth I, becoming the first composer to introduce the unaccompanied harmony of the madrigal to England, where it later became very popular. Elizabeth is said to have settled an annuity equivalent to £66 on him.  Ferrabosco’s madrigals suited English tastes and were considered very skilful. He also composed sacred music and instrumental music for lutes and viols.  Read more…

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Dino Meneghin – basketball player

Italy’s biggest star won 32 trophies and Olympic medal

Dino Meneghin, universally recognised as the greatest Italian player in basketball history, was born on this day in 1950 in Alano di Piave, a village in the Veneto.  The first Italian and only the second European player to be drafted by a National Basketball Association team when he was picked by the Atlanta Hawks in 1970, Meneghin enjoyed a professional career spanning 28 years.   He did not retire until he was 44 years old and had played in a professional match against his own son, Andrea, having won 32 trophies including 12 Italian national championships and seven EuroLeague titles.  Meneghin also participated in four Olympic basketball tournaments, winning a silver medal in the 1980 Games in Moscow. His international career amounted to 271 appearances for Italy, in which he scored 2,847 points.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Venice: The Remarkable History of the Lagoon City, by Dennis Romano

A sweeping and comprehensive history of Venice - from its formation in the early Middle Ages to the present day - that traces its evolution as a city, city-state, regional power, and overseas empire.  No city stirs the imagination more than Venice. From the richly ornamented palaces emerging from the waters of the Grand Canal to the dazzling sites of Piazza San Marco, visitors and residents alike sense they are entering, as 14th-century poet Petrarch remarked, "another world." During the Middle Ages and Renaissance, Venice was celebrated as a model republic in an age of monarchs. In the 17th and 18th centuries, it became famous for its freewheeling lifestyle characterized by courtesans, casinos, and Carnival. When the city fell on hard times following the collapse of the Republic in 1797, a darker vision of Venice as a place of decay, disease, and death took hold. Today tourists from around the globe flock to the world heritage site as rising sea levels threaten its very foundations.  This comprehensive account reveals the adaptations to its geographic setting that have been a constant feature of living on water from Venice's origins to the present. It examines the lives of the women and men, noble and common, rich and poor, Christian, Jew, and Muslim, who built not only the city but also its vast empire that stretched from Northern Italy to the eastern Mediterranean.  Venice: The Remarkable History of the Lagoon City offers a stunning portrait of this most singular of cities.

Dennis Romano is the Dr Walter Montgomery and Marian Gruber Professor of History emeritus at Syracuse University, in New York State. He is the author and editor of numerous books.

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Austria takes control of Venice

Soldiers restored calm but became unpopular with the Venetians 

The French troops of Napoleon, pictured arriving
in St Mark's square, looted Venice's treasures

Austrian troops took over Venice and her territories on this day in 1798 and put an end to the destruction and looting caused by Napoleon Bonaparte’s soldiers in the city.

The Venetian Republic had proclaimed itself neutral during the Napoleonic Wars, knowing it could not afford to get involved in conflict. But Napoleon wanted to acquire the city anyway, and in May 1797 had provoked the Venetians into attacking a French ship, which he then used as an excuse to declare war against Venice.

The Venetian Grand Council and the last of its Doges, Ludovico Manin, voted the Republic out of existence and surrendered, putting the city under French rule. It was humiliating for Venice as it was the first time foreign troops had occupied the city in its 1,100 years of history.

But worse was to come as the French soldiers began systematically stripping Venice of its assets. 

The Lion of Venice, which sits on top one of the two granite columns that stand guard at the lagoon end of the Piazzetta adjoining St Mark's Square, was lifted down and taken to France and Napoleon’s soldiers seized many art treasures and large quantities of gold and silver. 

In October 1797, the French and the Austrians signed the Treaty of Campo Formio and Venice was awarded to Austria, in return for France getting Lombardy and the area of Belgium then known as the Austrian Netherlands. 

But before the city was handed over to the Austrians, the French destroyed the Venetian navy, sending some of the ships back to France, and deliberately scuttling others.

Workers at Venice’s Arsenale were dismissed and the whole complex was burnt down. Churches, convents, and palaces were emptied of valuables and artworks. The state mint and the treasury of the Basilica of St Mark were confiscated and the Doge's ceremonial galley, the Bucintoro, was stripped of all its sculptures. These were then burned on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore to recover their gold leaf. 

The abdication as Doge of Ludovico Manin, which
spelt the end of the Venetian Republic

The famous bronze horses of Saint Mark were removed from the Basilica and taken to Paris, while many ordinary citizens were imprisoned and then forced to hand over their wealth in exchange for being given their freedom.

On the same day the French left Venice in January 1798, the Austrians arrived and ended the plunder. But their rule over Venice lasted only until 1805, when the city once again came under French control. It was returned to Austrian rule in 1815 and became part of the Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia, until its incorporation into the Kingdom of Italy in 1866.

Even though the Austrians had brought an end to the appalling ravages caused to the city by the French, the Venetians came to dislike their Austrian invaders. However, the new rulers were instrumental in building the railway that connected the city to the mainland, which opened the way for a new era of prosperity for Venice.

The Venetians rose up in rebellion against the Austrians in 1848, staging a general strike and recruiting a militia of 4,000 men, briefly driving their invaders out. The new Republic of San Marco declared its independence in March 1848 and a year passed before the Austrians reclaimed the city. The Austrian navy sailed into the lagoon and laid siege to the city, until its inhabitants were starving, and suffering from a cholera epidemic, and had no choice but to surrender.

The Austrians were finally driven out of Venice by the army of Victor Emmanuel II during the wars of Italian unification, at which point Venice became part of the Kingdom of Italy as a result of the Treaty of Vienna. 

During the 19th century, while Venice was under Austrian rule, coffee drinking became popular in the city and Austrian pastries, such as strudel and krapfen, were served in the coffee houses. 

The Habsburgs added new dishes to the traditional seafood diet with their own recipes that used meat,  cream, and knedel (dumplings). Their army officers, officials, and academics, also brought their own cooks with them to Venice, which enriched the city’s culinary tradition, and some traditional Austrian dishes can still be found on menus in Venice.

Caffè Quadri became the coffee house of choice
for the Austrian occupiers of the city

Travel tip:

Caffè Quadri in St Mark’s Square in Venice became the preferred coffee house for Austrian army officers during their 19th century occupation of the city. Originally founded in 1775 by Giorgio Quadri, who introduced Turkish coffee to Venice, it was taken over and restored in 1830, and a restaurant was added upstairs, the only one still in existence in St Mark’s Square today. It became a central hub for Austrians to meet and socialise, discuss politics, and read newspapers in the Viennese coffee house tradition. In 2011, the management of Quadri was taken on by the Alajmo family, headed by the Michelin-starred chef, Massimiliano “Max” Alajmo. Its rival on St Mark's Square, Caffè Florian opened its doors for the first time on this day in 1720, predating Quadri by 55 years. Florian’s nowadays occupies a long stretch of the arcades on the southern side of Piazza San Marco, its seats stretching out across the square with a permanent orchestra in residence to entertain clients. Yet the original consisted of just two rooms.  It became known as Florian’s after the owner, Floriano Francesconi, and claims to be the oldest still-active coffee house in Italy.

Hotels in Venice by Hotels.com

Santa Lucia railway station is one of the few
modernist buildings facing Venice's Grand Canal

Travel tip:

Construction of Santa Lucia railway station in Venice was started in 1860 while the city was still under Austrian occupation. The Church of Santa Lucia and a convent were demolished to make room for the new station and its forecourt, and the station took the name Santa Lucia as a result. The current station building is one of the few modernist buildings facing the Grand Canal and was based on plans started by the architect Angiolo Mazzoni in 1924. The station building was constructed between 1936 and 1943 and the train hall, also designed by Mazzoni, was built after the end of World War II. The station is used by about 82,000 passengers per day, adding up to around 30 million per year. Every day, approximately 450 trains stop at the station, which is the terminus of several famous services, including the Venice Simplon Orient Express.

Find Venice hotels with Expedia

More reading:

Ludovico Manin - the last Doge of Venice

The Venetian lawyer who led the fight to drive out the Austrians

When Venice was the target of history’s first air raid

Also on this day:

1543: The birth of madrigal composer Alfonso Ferrabosco

1880: The birth of Cardinal Alfredo Ildefonso Schuster

1946: The birth of soprano Katia Ricciarelli 

1950: The birth of basketball star Dino Meneghin

1994: The launch of Silvano Berlusconi's Forza Italia political party

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17 January

Guidobaldo I – Duke of Urbino

Military leader headed a cultured court

Guidobaldo da Montefeltro, who was to become Duke of Urbino, was born on this day in Gubbio in 1472.  He succeeded his father, Federico da Montefeltro, as Duke of Urbino in 1482.  Guidobaldo married Elisabetta Gonzaga, the sister of Francesco II Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua, but they never had any children.  His court at Urbino was one of the most refined and elegant in Italy where literary men were known to congregate.  The writer Baldassare Castiglione painted an idyllic picture of it in his Book of the Courtier.  Castiglione was related on his mother’s side to the Gonzaga family of Mantua and represented them diplomatically.  As a result he met Guidobaldo, Duke of Urbino, and later took up residence in his court among the many distinguished guests.  During this time Castiglione also became a friend of the painter, Raphael, who painted a portrait of him that is now in The Louvre in Paris.  Read more…

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Antonio Moscheni - Jesuit painter

Unique legacy of chapel frescoes in India

The painter Antonio Moscheni, best known for the extraordinary frescoes he created in the chapel of St Aloysius College in Mangalore, India, was born on this day in 1854 in the town of Stezzano, near Bergamo in Lombardy.  St Aloysius, situated in the state of Karnataka in south-west India, was built by Italian Jesuit Missionaries in 1880 and the chapel added four years later.  A beautiful building, it would not look out of place in Rome and the Baroque extravagance of Moscheni's work, which adorns almost every available wall space and ceiling, makes it unique in India.  The chapel welcomes thousands of visitors each year simply to marvel at Moscheni's art for the vibrancy of the colours and the intricacy of the detail. Scenes depicted include the life of St. Aloysius, who as the Italian aristocrat Aloysius Gonzaga became a Jesuit. Read more…

Pope Gregory XI returns the papacy to Rome

Important date in Roman and papal history

The French Pope, Gregory XI, returned the papacy to Rome, against the wishes of France and several of his cardinals, on this day in 1377.  The move back to Rome was a highly significant act in history as the papacy, from that date onwards, was to remain in the city.  Gregory was born Pierre-Roger De Beaufort in Limoges. He was the last French pope, and he was also the last pope to reign from Avignon, where he had been unanimously elected in 1370.  He immediately gave consideration to returning the papacy to Rome in order to conduct negotiations for reuniting the Eastern and Western Churches and to maintain papal territories against a Florentine revolt being led by the powerful Visconti family.  But Gregory had to shelve his Roman plan temporarily in order to strive for peace between England and France after another phase in the Hundred Years’ War started.  Read more…

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Antonio del Pollaiuolo – artist

Paintings of muscular men show knowledge of anatomy

Renaissance painter, sculptor, engraver and goldsmith Antonio del Pollaiuolo was born on this day in 1433 in Florence.  He was also known as Antonio di Jacopo Pollaiuolo and sometimes as Antonio del Pollaiolo. The last name came from the trade of his father who sold poultry.  Antonio’s brother, Piero, was also an artist and they frequently worked together. Their work showed classical influences and an interest in human anatomy. It was reported that the brothers carried out dissections to improve their knowledge of the subject.  Antonio worked for a time in the Florence workshop of Bartoluccio di Michele where Lorenzo Ghiberti - creator of the bronze doors of the Florence Baptistery - also received his training.  Some of Antonio’s paintings show brutality.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: The Light of Italy: The Life and Times of Federico da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino, by Jane Stevenson

The one-eyed mercenary soldier Federico da Montefeltro, lord of Urbino between 1444 and 1482, was one of the most successful condottiere of the Italian Renaissance: renowned humanist, patron of the artist Piero della Francesca, and creator of one of the most celebrated libraries in Italy outside the Vatican. From 1460 until her early death in 1472 he was married to Battista, of the formidable Sforza family, their partnership apparently blissful. In the fine palace he built overlooking Urbino, Federico assembled a court regarded by many as representing a high point of Renaissance culture. For Baldassare Castiglione, Federico was la luce dell'Italia – 'the light of Italy'.  The Light of Italy: The Life and Times of Federico da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino is an affectionate account of Urbino's flowering and decline that casts revelatory light on patronage, politics and humanism in 15th-century Italy. As well as recounting the gripping stories of Federico and his Montefeltro and della Rovere successors, Stevenson considers in details Federico's cultural legacy – investigating the palace itself, the splendours of the ducal library, and his other architectural projects in Gubbio and elsewhere.

Jane Stevenson is a British historian, literary scholar, and author. A former Regius Professor of Humanity at the University of Aberdeen, since 2017 she has been Senior Research Fellow at Campion Hall, Oxford.

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