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10 May 2024

10 May

NEW - William II - Sicily’s last Norman king

Young monarch who enjoyed prosperous reign

William II, the last Norman king of Sicily, succeeded his father, William I, as the island’s monarch on this day in 1166.  The succession was brought about by the death of his father. William II was only 12 years old at the time and was placed under the regency of his mother before ruling in person from his 18th birthday in 1171.  History does not remember him as a particularly effective ruler, certainly not able to arrest the decline of the Norman Kingdom of Sicily, but he became known posthumously as William the Good on account of the peace and prosperity that the kingdom enjoyed during his 23-year reign.  This was largely a result of his policy of clemency and justice toward the towns and the barons, in contrast with his father’s time, when the rebellious barons across Sicily grew more powerful and demanded greater autonomy from the crown.  The new king spent much of his time in seclusion, enjoying the pleasures of  palace life at Palermo, where his court became a centre of culture and learning, attracting scholars, poets, and artists from across Europe and the Arab world.  His own contributions to the cultural and architectural heritage of the island include commissioning the magnificent cathedral at Monreale.  Read more…

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Ettore Scola - screenwriter and film director

Master of dark comedy and social drama

The screenwriter and director Ettore Scola, whose films encompassed elements of commedia all’italiana and neorealism, was born on this day in 1931 in Trevico, a mountainous village in Campania.  Scola, regarded by some as the last in the line of brilliant postwar Italian filmmakers, is best remembered for his 1977 drama Una giornata particolare (A Special Day), starring Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni, which won a Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film in 1978.  A Special Day was also nominated for an Academy Award as were three other films that Scola directed or co-directed during a career that spanned more than 60 years.  Scola made his first movie as a director in 1964 with the comedy Se permettete parliamo di donne - Let’s Talk About Women - which starred Vittorio Gassman. He was only 33 but was already a widely respected scriptwriter, which had been his profession since the age of 21.  He had regularly sent suggestions for gags and sketches to the Italian comic actor Totò and others when he was a 15-year-old at high school.  Scola was born to parents who were themselves both actors.  His home village, high up in the Campanian Apennines more than 60km (37 miles) from the city of Avellino, had no cinema. Read more…

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Miuccia Prada – fashion designer

Talented businesswoman studied politics and mime

Miuccia Prada, the businesswoman behind the fashion label Prada, was born Maria Bianchi on this day in 1949 in Milan.  The youngest granddaughter of the fashion firm’s founder, Mario Prada, she took over the family business in 1978 having previously been a mime student and a member of the Italian Communist Party.  Since then the company, which is famous for its luxury goods, has gone from strength to strength and taken over other labels. Prada has been listed as the 75th most powerful woman in the world, worth an estimated $11 billion.  After graduating with a PhD in political science from the University of Milan, Maria Bianchi trained at the Piccolo Teatro di Milano in mime and was a performer for five years.  As a member of the Italian Communist party she became involved in the women’s rights movement.  She took the name Miuccia Prada in the 1980s, making her first impact on the fashion world with an unusual handbag design in 1985, which was followed by her first women’s ready-to-wear collection.  The Miu Miu line was introduced in 1992 as a less expensive womenswear line.  Read more…

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Antonio Priuli - Doge of Venice

Doge clamped down on Spanish ‘spies’

Antonio Priuli, who was the 94th Doge of Venice, was born on this day in 1548 in Venice.  He took office in 1618 in the midst of allegations that the Spanish were conspiring to invade Venice. He immediately began a brutal process of ferreting out individuals suspected of plotting against La Serenissima, the Most Serene Republic of Venice.  The so-called ‘spy war’ did not end until 1622 and resulted in the imprisonment and deaths of many innocent people.  Priuli was the son of Girolamo Priuli and Elisabetta Cappello. He grew up to enjoy a successful career as a sailor and a soldier and married Elena Barbarigo, with whom he had 14 children.  In 1618 Priuli was appointed provveditore, a type of governor, of Veglia, an island in the Adriatic, which now belongs to Croatia.  That same year, following the death of Doge Nicolo Donato, Priuli was recalled from Veglia to become the next Doge.  At the time it was believed that the Spanish, led by the Spanish Ambassador to Venice, Alfonso de la Cueva, 1st Marquis of Bedmar, had landed mercenaries on Venetian territory. It was thought Bedmar had successfully infiltrated the Venetian military.  Read more…

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Carlo Filangieri - military general

Brilliant soldier who served several masters

The military general Carlo Filangieri, who fought for both the Napoleonic and Bourbon leaders of Naples in the 19th century and is best known for his suppression of the Sicilian uprising of 1848, was born on this day in 1784 in Cava de’ Tirreni in Campania.  Filangieri was a key strategist for Joachim Murat, the flamboyant cavalry leader Napoleon had made King of Naples, achieving a major victory at personal cost in Murat’s ultimately failed campaign against Austria in 1815.  When Murat was defeated and the Bourbon monarch Ferdinand IV was reinstated as King of Naples, Filangieri was retained, going on to serve his successor, Ferdinand II of the Two Sicilies, under whose orders he put down the revolution of 1848.  Filangieri was from a noble family in Naples, the son of Gaetano Filangieri, a celebrated philosopher and jurist who had the title of Prince of Satriano, a town in Calabria, which Carlo would inherit.  His family were staying at the Villa Eva in Cava de’ Tirreni at the time of his birth, because it was felt his father’s poor health would benefit from living away from Naples.  Read more…

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Antonio Ghirelli - journalist

Neapolitan writer specialised in football and politics

Antonio Ghirelli, a patriarch of Italian journalism, was born on this day in 1922 in Naples.  As passionate about football as he was about politics, Ghirelli was equally at home writing about both. At different times he edited the three principal Italian sports daily newspapers, La Gazzetta dello Sport, Tuttosport and Corriere dello Sport, but also wrote with distinction in the editorial and opinion pages of such respected titles as L'Unità, Paese Sera, Avanti!, Corriere della Sera, Il Mondo and Il Globo.  Sandro Pertini, who was President of Italy from 1978 to 1985, so respected his wisdom that he invited him to be head of the Quirinale press office. His politics were in line with those of the Socialist Pertini, as they were with Bettino Craxi, Italy’s first Socialist prime minister, for whom he was principal press officer during Craxi’s two spells in office.  Ghirelli’s first taste of politics came at university in Naples, when he wrote for a young Fascist journal.  Any sympathies he might have had with the Fascists soon disappeared, however, as Mussolini’s early socialist ideals became corrupted by his fervent nationalism and intolerance of political opponents.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: The Kingdom in the Sun, 1130-1194: The Normans in Sicily Volume II, by John Julius Norwich

When on Christmas Day, 1130, Roger de Hauteville was crowned first King of Sicily, the island entered a golden age. Norman and Italian, Greek and Arab, Lombard, Englishman and Jew all contributed to a culture that was fantastically cosmopolitan; and to an atmosphere of racial and religious toleration unparalleled in Europe. But 64 years later, to the day, when the bastard King Tancred was defeated, the sun set on the Sicilian Kingdom. In The Kingdom in the Sun, the second volume of John Julius Norwich's scintillating history of the Normans in Sicily, Norwich describes the 'happiest and most glorious chapter of the island's history.'

John Julius Norwich was the author of more than 20 books. He began his career in the British foreign service, but resigned his diplomatic post to become a writer. He was a chairman of the Venice in Peril Fund and the honorary chairman of the World Monuments Fund. He died in 2018.

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5 September 2019

Mario Scelba – Prime Minister of Italy

Tough interior minister worked for social and economic reform


The Christian Democrat Mario Scelba became Italy's 33rd Prime Minister in February 1954
The Christian Democrat Mario Scelba became Italy's
33rd Prime Minister in February 1954
Mario Scelba, a Christian Democrat who would become Italy’s 33rd Prime Minister, was born on this day in 1901 in Caltagirone in Sicily.

He earned the nickname ‘the Iron Sicilian’ while serving as Interior Minister because of his repression of both left-wing protests and Neo-Fascist rallies.

Scelba had been born into a poor family that worked on land owned by the priest Don Luigi Sturzo, who was to become one of the founders of the Italian People’s Party (PPI).

As his godfather, Sturzo paid for Scelba to study law in Rome. When the Fascists suppressed the PPI and forced Sturzo into exile, Scelba remained in Rome as his agent.

He wrote for the underground newspaper, Il Popolo, during the Second World War. He was once arrested by the Germans but freed after three days as he was considered to be ‘a worthless catch’.

After Rome’s liberation by the Allied Forces, Scelba joined the new Christian Democrats, reborn out of the PPI.

Scelba (right) served in two governments under Prime Minister Alcide De Gasperi (left)
Scelba (right) served in two governments under Prime
Minister Alcide De Gasperi (left)
The Christian Democrats started organising post-Fascist Italy in competition with the centre and left parties, but also at times in coalition with them.

Scelba was Minister of Post and Telecommunications in Ferruccio Parri’s anti-Fascist government and in the two successive Governments of Alcide de Gasperi.

In 1947 as Interior Minister in De Gasperi’s third government, he became infamous for his hard line against the Communists and labour unions. He expelled former partisans from the police and cracked down on left-wing demonstrations, often using violence.

He thought the police were so ineffective at that time he once said if he were a Communist he would start a revolution the next day.

An Italian statute defining and banning fascism is known as the Scelba Law, but he wrote it to restrain the activities of the Communists as well.

Scelba increased police numbers and armed and equipped them with cars and jeeps to deal with riots. He made enemies because of his harsh methods and his concern for law and order but he also favoured social reforms and public works and attacked speculators for pushing up prices.

The bandit Salvatore Giuliano was blamed for the Portella della Ginestra massacre
The bandit Salvatore Giuliano was blamed
for the Portella della Ginestra massacre
He thought it was possible to undermine the Communists with social and economic improvement, particularly in southern Italy.

Scelba was involved in setting up the Gladio network, the clandestine NATO stay behind operation in Italy after the Second World War to organise resistance against an invasion of Europe.

In 1947, a few days after a victory for the left in local elections in Sicily, a Labour Day parade in Portella della Ginestra was attacked, culminating in the killing of 11 people and the wounding of more than 30.

The attack was attributed to the bandit leader, Salvatore Giuliano, and was thought to be punishment for the local election results.

Scelba reported to Parliament the next day that the police believed the massacre to be non-political.

But the Communist deputy, Girolamo Li Causi, claimed the Mafia had ordered the attack, working with landowners and monarchists.

In the summer of 1950 the men responsible for the attack went on trial in Viterbo. Scelba was accused of involvement in the plot to carry out the massacre but at the end of the trial the judge concluded that no higher authority had ordered the massacre and that Guiliano had acted autonomously.

Communist deputy Girolamo Li Causi claimed the massacre was ordered by the Mafia
Communist deputy Girolamo Li Causi claimed
the massacre was ordered by the Mafia
The 1948 elections in Italy were overshadowed by the Cold War confrontations between the Soviet Union and the US and Scelba announced that the Government had 330,000 men ready to take on the Communists if they tried to make trouble on election day.

As Prime Minister of Italy between 1954 and 1955, Scelba tried to steer a middle course between the left and the right.

He worked for strong relations with the US and resolved outstanding wartime issues, such as the recovery of Trieste for Italy. In 1954 his Government passed a law introducing an investment plan for the public construction of economic housing.

Scelba was one of the last influential Christian Democrats to oppose the inclusion of left-wing Socialists in Government coalitions. In 1962 he was eventually dropped from Amintore Fanfani’s cabinet for that reason.

He was elected a senator in 1968 and served until his resignation in 1979. He was president of the European parliament from 1969 to 1971.

Scelba died of thrombosis at his home in Rome in October 1991, aged 90.

The city of Caltagirone in Sicily, where Prime Minister Mario Scelba was born in 1901
The city of Caltagirone in Sicily, where Prime Minister
Mario Scelba was born in 1901
Travel tip:

Caltagirone, where Mario Scelba was born, is a municipality about 70 km (43 miles) southwest of Catania in Sicily. In 1987 Caltagirone was given the title of city. It is well-known for the production of pottery, maiolica and terracotta wares. Its main attraction for visitors is the 142-step Scalinata di Santa Maria del Monte, which dates back to 1608. Each step is decorated with different hand painted ceramics using ancient designs. Every year on 25 July, the Feast Day of Caltagirone’s patron saint, St James, the staircase is illuminated with candles in different colours, arranged to look like a large work of art.

The jagged upright stones that mark the bleak site of the Porta della Ginestra Massacre
The jagged upright stones that mark the bleak site
of the Porta della Ginestra Massacre
Travel tip:

The site of the Porta della Ginestra Massacre, which is about 4km (2.5 miles) southwest of Piana degli Albanesi and about 30 km (19 miles) from Palermo, is marked with 11 jagged upright stones, one for each of the victims, on the spot where they fell. May Day celebrations have been held there every year since 1893.

More reading:

The Porta della Ginestra Massacre

How novelist Leonardo Sciascia exposed the links between Italian politics and the Mafia

Francesco Cossiga's bid to keep the Communists out of power

Also on this day:

1533: The birth of philosopher Giacomo Zabarella

1568: The birth of Tommaso Campanella

1970: The birth of Paralympian Francesca Porcellato


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10 May 2021

Carlo Filangieri - military general

Brilliant soldier who served several masters

Carlo Filangeri was known as a brilliant military strategist
Carlo Filangeri was known as a
brilliant military strategist
The military general Carlo Filangieri, who fought for both the Napoleonic and Bourbon leaders of Naples in the 19th century and is best known for his suppression of the Sicilian uprising of 1848, was born on this day in 1784 in Cava de’ Tirreni in Campania.

Filangieri was a key strategist for Joachim Murat, the flamboyant cavalry leader Napoleon had made King of Naples, achieving a major victory at personal cost in Murat’s ultimately failed campaign against Austria in 1815.

When Murat was defeated and the Bourbon monarch Ferdinand IV was reinstated as King of Naples, Filangieri was retained, going on to serve his successor, Ferdinand II of the Two Sicilies, under whose orders he put down the revolution of 1848.

Filangieri was from a noble family in Naples, the son of Gaetano Filangieri, a celebrated philosopher and jurist who had the title of Prince of Satriano, a town in Calabria, which Carlo would inherit.  His family were staying at the Villa Eva in Cava de’ Tirreni at the time of his birth, because it was felt his father’s poor health would benefit from living away from Naples.

From an early age he was keen to follow a military career and, after making the acquaintance in Milan of the commander of the French army in Italy, who was an admirer of his father’s work, he was introduced to Napoleon Bonaparte and given a place at military school in France. On graduating, he became a lieutenant and fought in the War of the Third Coalition, part of the Napoleonic Wars, in 1805, serving with distinction under General Louis-Nicolas Davout in the French victory against the Austrian and Russian Empires at the Battle of Austerlitz.

The sumptuous palace on the Naples waterfront that became Filangieri's home
The Palazzo Ravaschieri di Satriano a Napoli, the palace,
 on the Naples waterfront that became Filangieri's home
The following year he returned to Italy, where he served under Jean-Andre Massena's command during his campaign against Bourbon Naples, and he would later become an adjutant to Murat when the latter became King of Naples. He lived in some style at the Palazzo Ravaschieri di Satriano a Napoli, on the then-prestigious Riviera di Chiaia, the long waterfront boulevard that stretches west from the Castel dell'Ovo.

On Murat’s behalf, Filangieri pulled off a brilliant victory over the Austrians at the Battle of the Panaro near Modena in northern Italy, although he was severely wounded in the process.  

The campaign ended in defeat for Murat and Naples returned to Bourbon control, initially under the leadership of Ferdinand IV of Naples, who assumed the title of Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies when the Kingdoms of Naples and Sicily merged in 1816.  Filangieri was retained in his rank but after siding with the Italian patriot and constitutionalist General Guglielmo Pepe in the uprisings of 1820 was dismissed from service.

He retired to his estates in Calabria but was persuaded to return by Ferdinand II in 1831. When more uprisings broke out in 1848, he advised the monarch to grant the constitution. However, this was put on hold again when Sicily seceded from Naples he was charged with regaining control of the island.

An 1830 painting shows Joachim Murat helping the wounded Filangieri at the Battle of the Panaro
An 1830 painting shows Joachim Murat helping
the wounded Filangieri at the Battle of the Panaro
After severe fighting and sustained bombardment, he captured Messina, the city at the northeast tip of the island, closest to the mainland, after which he advanced south, laying siege to Catania. By May 1849, at a cost of considerable bloodshed, he had subdued the whole of Sicily, though not without much bloodshed.

He remained in Sicily until 1855. On the death of Ferdinand II in 1859, the new monarch Francis II appointed Filangieri as minister of war and president of the council. However, he soon resigned after Francis rejected another proposal to grant a popular constitution and to ally Naples with France and Piedmont against Austria. 

The following year, Francis at last promulgated the constitution, but by then Giuseppe Garibaldi’s forces were in Sicily and Naples was a cauldron of rebellion. Filangieri refused to fight against Garibaldi and was ordered to leave Naples. 

He initially went to Marseilles, moved for a time to Florence and eventually settled at his villa in San Giorgio a Cremano, in the foothills of Vesuvius, where he died in October 1867 at the age of 81.

The Borgo Scacciaventi is part of Cava's main street
The Borgo Scacciaventi is
part of Cava's main street
Travel tip:

Cava de’ Tirreni, where Filangieri was born, is a fascinating historical town just a few kilometres inland from Vietri sul Mare, the seaside resort at the southern end of the famed Amalfi Coast, occupying the valley between the cities of Salerno and Nocera Inferiore.  It takes its name from its first inhabitants, the Tyrrhenians, who were descended from the Etruscans. The focal point of the town is the long, porticoed Corso Umberto, which runs from one end of the centre to the other, eventually turning into the narrow, winding Borgo Scacciaventi, which was Cava’s 15th century shopping centre. With its nearby Benedictine Abbey, the Abbazia della Santissima Trinità, Cava de' Tirreni has been an important destination for travellers since the 17th century and was popular with poets and Grand Tourists in the 19th century.

The Villa Vannucchi, with its impressive gardens, is one of the Ville Vesuviane in San Giorgio a Cremano
The Villa Vannucchi, with its impressive gardens, is
one of the Ville Vesuviane in San Giorgio a Cremano

Travel tip:

Now a densely populated suburb of the Naples metropolis, San Giorgio a Cremano was a much different place in the 18th and 19th centuries, when it was one of the five traditional towns that travellers would pass through as they made their way south along the Bay of Naples, along with Portici, Ercolano, Torre del Greco and Torre Annunziata. All five towns were then popular summer resorts and many wealthy and aristocratic families chose them for their holiday homes. The sumptuous summer residences they built became known as the Ville Vesuviane (Vesuvian Villas), a great number of which are still preserved in San Giorgio.

Also on this day:

1548: The birth of Doge of Venice Antonio Priuli

1922: The birth of journalist Antonio Ghirelli

1949: The birth of fashion designer Miuccia Prada


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15 May 2024

15 May

NEW
- Battle of Calatafimi

The Expedition of the Thousand gets off to a good start

Garibaldi won his first victory during his invasion of Sicily on this day in 1860 at Calatafimi near Trapani.  His army of Redshirts beat a larger number of Neapolitan troops representing The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, who had been sent from Palermo to block the roads to the Sicilian capital. Four days before the battle, Garibaldi’s ‘Thousand,’ known as I Mille in Italian, had landed at Marsala and set off on a direct route to Palermo.  A Neapolitan Brigadier General, Francesco Landi, was sent to intercept Garibaldi and his volunteer troops before they could get to Palermo.  Landi deployed 2,700 men, as well as cannons and horse artillery, on a terraced hill called Pianto dei Romani, forcing Garibaldi into having to attack them uphill to get past them and continue with his journey. The Neapolitan troops were better armed than Garibaldi’s men and had modern rifles, but the Redshirts made a series of determined bayonet charges, causing the Neapolitans to have to move back to the terraces above to avoid their opponents getting too close with their weapons.  The Neapolitans were pushed back to the top of the hill and Garibaldi’s men captured one of their cannons.  Read more…

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Anna Maria Alberghetti - singer and actress

Child prodigy who rejected Hollywood to become Broadway star

The actress and operatic singer Anna Maria Alberghetti was born on this day in 1936 in the Adriatic resort of Pesaro.  She moved with her family to the United States in her teens and became a Broadway star, winning a Tony Award in 1962 as best actress in a musical for her performance in Bob Merrill’s Carnival, directed by Gower Champion.  Alberghetti was a child prodigy with music in her blood. Her father was an accomplished musician, an opera singer and concertmaster of the Rome Opera Company, who also played the cello. Her mother was a pianist.  They influenced the direction in which her talent developed and by the age of six she was singing with symphony orchestras with her father as her vocal instructor.  After success touring Europe, Anna Maria was invited to perform in the United States and made her debut at Carnegie Hall in New York at the age of 14. Given the state of Italy after the Second World War, the idea of settling permanently in America became too attractive for the family to resist.   At that time, Anna Maria’s focus was on a career as an opera singer but the American cinema industry was obsessed with European actresses.  Read more…

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Debut of Italy’s national football team

Illustrious history began with victory over France

The first official international football match involving Italy took place on this day in 1910 in Milan.  Officially formed four months earlier, the Azzurri made their debut at the Arena Civica in Milan, beating France 6-2 in front of a crowd said to number 4,000 spectators.  The match was refereed by Henry Goodley, an Englishman.  The team’s first goal was scored after 13 minutes by Pietro Lana, a forward with the AC Milan club, who went on to score a hat-trick, including a penalty kick.  In a team dominated by Milan-based players, the other goals were scored by Internazionale’s Virgilio Fossati, Giuseppe Rizzi of the Ausonia-Milano club and Enrico Debernardi, who played for Torino. Fossati, tragically, was killed six years later while fighting for the Italian Army in World War One.  Organised football had begun in Italy in 1898 with the founding of the Federazione Italiana Giuoco Calcio - the Italian Football Federation - who arranged the first national championship, won by Genoa.  The FIGC was primarily concerned with domestic football and it was the newspaper La Stampa, a daily journal published in Turin, who first mooted the idea of a team to represent the nation.  Read more…

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Pippo Barzizza - band leader

Musician was an Italian pioneer of jazz and swing

The musician and bandleader Giuseppe ‘Pippo’ Barzizza, who helped popularise jazz and swing music in Italy during a long and successful career, was born on this day in 1902 in Genoa.  Barzizza was active in music for eight decades but was probably at the peak of his popularity in the 1930s and 40s, when he led the Blue Star and Cetra orchestras.  He continued to be a major figure in popular music until the 1960s and thereafter regularly came out of retirement to show that his talents had not waned.  He died at his home in Sanremo in 1994, just a few weeks before his 93rd birthday.  As well as arranging the music of others, Barzizza wrote more than 200 songs of his own in his lifetime, and helped advance the careers of such singers as Alberto Rabagliati, Otello Boccaccini, Norma Bruni, Maria Jottini and Silvana Fioresi among others.  In addition to his skills as a writer, conductor and orchestra leader, Barzizza was an accomplished player of a range of instruments, including violin, piano, saxophone, banjo and accordion.  A child prodigy on the violin, Barzizza was able to play a Mozart symphony almost before he could read.  Read more…

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Salvatore Fisichella - operatic tenor

Singer was called the most outstanding interpreter of Bellini of his day

Opera singer Salvatore Fisichella, who won international acclaim for his interpretations of the leading roles in Bellini’s operas, was born on this day in 1943 in Catania in Sicily.  Recognised for the ease and vocal brilliance of his singing, Fisichella has specialised in performing in bel canto operas, especially those of Gioachino Rossini, Gaetano Donizetti and Vincenzo Bellini.  He began singing when he was a small child at family parties. He was taught music at the local seminary and from the age of ten sang solos during church services.  After leaving the seminary, Fisichella attended a secondary school that had a science-based curriculum and then studied to become a surveyor.  Once he had qualified as a surveyor, he had little time for singing, but one day he was invited to the wedding of one of his clients. Fisichella had drawn up the plans for the couple’s new home, but on the day of the wedding he found himself filling in for the tenor, who had been scheduled to perform but whose arrival was delayed.  The bride, who had specifically requested Ave Maria, was so upset she threatened to postpone the wedding. Read more… 

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Claudio Monteverdi – composer

Baroque musician who gave us the first real opera

The composer and musician Claudio Monteverdi was baptised on this day in 1567 in Cremona in Lombardy.  Children were baptised soon after their birth in the 16th century so it is likely Monteverdi was born on 15 May or just before.  He was to become the most important developer of a new genre, the opera, and bring a more modern touch to church music.  Monteverdi studied under the maestro di cappella at the cathedral in Cremona and published several books of religious and secular music while still in his teens.  He managed to secure a position as a viola player at Vincenzo Gonzaga’s court in Mantua where he came into contact with some of the top musicians of the time. He went on to become master of music there in 1601.  It was his first opera, L’Orfeo, written for the Gonzaga court, that really established him as a composer.  In the early 17th century, the intermedio, the music played between the acts of a play, was evolving into the form of a complete musical drama, or opera. Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo was the first fully developed example of this and is the earliest opera still being regularly staged.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Garibaldi: Invention of a Hero, by Lucy Riall

Giuseppe Garibaldi, the Italian revolutionary leader and popular hero, was among the best-known figures of the 19th century. This book seeks to examine his life and the making of his cult, to assess its impact, and understand its surprising success. For 30 years Garibaldi was involved in every combative event in Italy. His greatest moment came in 1860, when he defended a revolution in Sicily and provoked the collapse of the Bourbon monarchy, the overthrow of papal power in central Italy, and the creation of the Italian nation state. It made him a global icon, representing strength, bravery, manliness, saintliness, and a spirit of adventure. Handsome, flamboyant, and sexually attractive, he was worshipped in life and became a cult figure after his death in 1882. Lucy Riall shows that the emerging cult of Garibaldi was initially conceived by revolutionaries intent on overthrowing the status quo, that it was also the result of a collaborative effort involving writers, artists, actors, and publishers, and that it became genuinely and enduringly popular among a broad public. Garibaldi: Invention of a Hero demonstrates that Garibaldi played an integral part in fashioning and promoting himself as a new kind of “charismatic” political hero. It analyses the way the Garibaldi myth has been harnessed both to legitimise and to challenge national political structures. And it identifies elements of Garibaldi’s political style appropriated by political leaders around the world, including Mussolini and Che Guevara.

Lucy Riall is an Irish historian. She was a professor of history at Birkbeck, University of London, and is currently a professor in the Department of History and Civilisation at the European University Institute in Florence. Her publications include The Italian Risorgimento: State, Society and National Unification and Sicily and the Unification of Italy: Liberal Policy and Local Power (1859-66).

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30 November 2020

Ippolito Nievo - writer and patriot

Risorgimento novel now seen as an overlooked classic

ppolito Nievo (above) fought with  Garibaldi in the cause of unification
Ippolito Nievo (above) fought with 
Garibaldi in the cause of unification
The writer Ippolito Nievo, whose posthumously published Confessions of an Italian is now considered the most important novel about the Risorgimento in Italian literature, was born on this day in 1831 in Padua.

Nievo, who was a passionate supporter of the move to unify Italy in the 19th century, drew inspiration from his participation in Giuseppe Garibaldi’s Spedizione dei Mille - the Expedition of the Thousand - which sought to achieve that goal.

He died for the cause at the age of just 29, perishing in a shipwreck while transporting important documents from Palermo to Naples.

His legacy was preserved in his most famous novel, in which the central character and narrator shares Nievo’s passions. Nievo completed the work in 1858 but it was not until 1867, six years after his death, that it found a publisher.

Nievo was born into comfortable circumstances.  His father was a prominent lawyer and magistrate in Padua and his mother the daughter of a Friulian countess.  Their home in Padua was the Palazzo Mocenigo Querini, a 16th century house overlooking Via Sant’Eufemia, close to the city centre. 

They also had use of his mother’s ancestral home, a castle in Colloredo di Montalbano, a hamlet just outside the city of Udine in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, and of the Palazzo Nievo in Mantua. 

Nievo was inspired by the political goals of revolutionary Giuseppe Mazzini
Nievo was inspired by the political goals
of revolutionary Giuseppe Mazzini
From 1832 to 1837, when Nievo was a small child, they lived in a house adjoining the Palazzo della Giustizia in Soave, about 60km (37 miles) from Padua, where his father was posted as a judge.  By the late 1840s, Nievo was becoming increasingly fascinated by the writings of Carlo Cattaneo and Giuseppe Mazzini, two of the central philosophical drivers of the Risorgimento.

He is thought to have taken part in a failed uprising in Mantua in 1848, a year marked by a series of insurrections inspired by Italian nationalists seeking to overthrow the Austian grip on the north of the country.  He had been inspired by conversations with his maternal grandfather, Carlo Marin, who had been a prominent official of the Venetian Republic when it fell to the Austrians in 1797.

Nievo refused to follow his father into the law as he felt it would imply submission to the Austrian government and instead pursued a career in journalism.

His political activity intensified in the late 1850s, when he joined Garibaldi’s Cacciatori delle Alpi, a brigade of volunteers fighting to liberate Lombardy, and then participated in the Expedition of the Thousand, given the number 690 in the list of 1,000 patriots.

Nievo embarked in Genoa on 5 May, 1860 setting sail for Sicily. After distinguishing himself in the battle of Calatafimi and in Palermo, he was promoted to colonel and took on administrative assignments, at the same time keeping diaries that served as a chronicle of events. 

It was in this role that he was tasked with bringing back from Sicily all the administrative documents and receipts from the expedition’s expenses. He boarded the steamship Ercole along with other members of the military administration to travel from Palermo to Naples, but during the night between March 4 and 5, 1861, the vessel ran into difficulties off the coast of Sorrento, almost within view of the Bay of Naples, and sank.  There were no survivors.

An English edition of Nievo's most famous book
An English edition of Nievo's
most famous book
It was during the years between these periods of active support for the revolutionary cause that Nievo did the bulk of his writing.

Much of this time he spent in retreat in Colloredo di Montalbano, writing a number of novels set in the Friulian countryside, as well as volumes of short stories and poetry.

He began writing his major work at some point in the mid-1850s. The central character is an 83-year-old man, Carlo Altoviti - thought to be based at least loosely on Carlo Marin - who has decided to write down the history of his long life, from an unhappy childhood to romantic entanglements during the siege of Genoa, and fighting in the cause of revolution in Naples. 

Carlo’s twin passions are the dream of a unified, free Italy and his undying love for Pisana, the woman with whom he is obsessed. With characters ranging from drunken smugglers to saintly nuns and scheming priests, as well as real figures such as Napoleon and Lord Byron, it is an epic novel that tells the story of one man's life and the history of Italy's unification.

When Nievo’s supporters found a publisher years after Nievo’s unexpected death, the book was titled Confessioni di un ottuagenario (Confessions of an octogenarian), because Nievo’s intended title was still deemed politically sensitive.  It was changed later to reflect the author’s wishes.

Nievo’s life is commemorated in a number of locations, including Colloredo di Montalbano and Fossalta di Portogruaro, in the Veneto, where the Castello di Fratta, the scene of Carlo Altoviti’s unhappy childhood, was thought to be located.  There is a statue of him in Cordovado, in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, where there is a literary park dedicated to his name.

Nievo wrote his masterpiece while in retreat at the castle in Colloredo di Montalbano
Nievo wrote his masterpiece while in retreat
at the castle in Colloredo di Montalbano
Travel tip:

Colloredo di Monte Albano - known locally as Colloredo di Montalbano - is a small village in Friuli-Venezia Giulia situated about 14km (9 miles) northwest of Udine.  In the 11th century, it was a fief of the Viscounts of Mels, who had received it from the Counts of Tyrol. In 1420, together with all of Friuli, the hamlet was acquired by the Republic of Venice.  The village was severely damaged by the Friuli earthquake in 1976, yet the family castle remains intact.

The Caffè Pedrocchi was at the centre of life for students and intellectuals in Padua
The Caffè Pedrocchi was at the centre of life for
students and intellectuals in Padua
Travel tip:

Padua’s revolutionary movement had strong links to the city’s Caffè Pedrocchi, a meeting place for business people, students, intellectuals and writers for nearly 200 years. Founded by coffee maker Antonio Pedrocchi in 1831, the café was designed in neoclassical style and each side is edged with Corinthian columns. It quickly became a centre for the Risorgimento movement and was popular with students and artists because of its location close to Palazzo del Bò, the main university building. It briefly became a battleground when the students rose up against the armed Austrians in 1848.  You can still see a hole in the wall of the White Room inside Caffè Pedrocchi made by a bullet fired by an Austro-Hungarian soldier at the students.

Also on this day:

1466: The birth of military commander Andrea Doria

1485: The birth of poet and stateswoman Veronica Gambara

1954: The birth of actress Simonetta Stefanelli

1957: The death of opera singer Beniamino Gigli


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30 May 2024

30 May

Giacomo Matteotti - martyr of freedom

Politician kidnapped and murdered by Fascist thugs

A brave and historic speech made in the Italian parliament on this day in 1924 marked the start of a crisis for Benito Mussolini's Fascist government.  The young socialist politician who delivered the speech, denouncing the Fascist victory in the general election held in April of that year as having been won through fraud and violence, was subsequently kidnapped and murdered.  Giacomo Matteotti, the 29-year-old founder and leader of the Unified Socialist Party, accused Mussolini's party of employing thugs to intimidate the public into voting Fascist and said that changes to electoral law were inherently corrupt in that they were framed to make a Mussolini government almost inevitable.  Matteotti, who had already written a controversial book about the Fascists' rise to power, knew the risk he took in making the speech and is said to have told colleagues they should "get ready to hold a wake for me" as they offered him their congratulations.  Less than two weeks later, on June 10, Matteotti was walking along the banks of the River Tiber close to his home in Rome when he was attacked by five or six assailants who beat him up and bundled him into a car.  Read more…

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General Giulio Douhet - military strategist

Army commander was one of first to see potential of air power

The Italian Army general Giulio Douhet, who saw the military potential in aircraft long before others did, was born in Caserta, north of Naples, on this day in 1869.  With the arrival of airships and then fixed-wing aircraft in Italy, Douhet recognized the military potential of the new technology. He advocated the creation of a separate air arm commanded by airmen rather than by commanders on the ground. From 1912 to 1915 Douhet served as commander of the Aeronautical Battalion, Italy’s first aviation unit.  Largely because of Douhet, the three-engine Caproni bomber - designed by the young aircraft engineer Gianni Caproni - was ready for use by the time Italy entered the First World War.  His severe criticism of Italy’s conduct of the war, however, resulted in his court-martial and imprisonment. Only after a review of Italy’s catastrophic defeat in 1917 in the Battle of Caporetto was it decided that his criticisms had been justified and his conviction reversed.  Born into a family of Savoyard exiles who had migrated to Campania after the cession of Savoy to France, Douhet attended the Military Academy of Modena and was commissioned into the artillery of the Italian Army in 1882.  Read more…

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Giovanni Gentile – philosopher

The principal intellectual spokesman for Fascism

Giovanni Gentile, a major figure in Italian idealist philosophy, was born on this day in 1875 in Castelvetrano in Sicily.  Known as ‘the philosopher of fascism’, Gentile was the ghostwriter of part of Benito Mussolini’s The Doctrine of Fascism in 1932. His own ‘actual idealism’ was strongly influenced by the German philosopher, Georg Hegel.  Gentile's rejection of individualism and acceptance of collectivism helped him justify the totalitarian element of fascism.  After a series of university appointments, Gentile became Professor of the History of Philosophy at the University of Rome in 1917.  While writing La filosophia di Marx - The Philosophy of Marx - a Hegelian examination of Karl Marx’s ideas, he met writer and philosopher Benedetto Croce. The two men became friends and co-editors of the periodical La Critica until 1924, when a lasting disagreement occurred over Gentile’s embrace of fascism.  Gentile was Minister of Education in the Fascist government of Italy from October 1922 to July 1924 carrying out wide reforms, which had a lasting impact on Italian education.  Read more…

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Andrea Verga - anatomist and neurologist

Professor among founding fathers of Italian psychiatry

The anatomist and neurologist Andrea Verga, who was one of the first Italian doctors to carry out serious research into mental illness, was born on this day in 1811 in Treviglio in Lombardy.  Verga’s career was notable for his pioneering study of the criminally insane, for some of the first research into acrophobia - the fear of heights - which was a condition from which he suffered, and for the earliest known experiments in the therapeutic use of cannabis.  For a number of years, he held the post of Professor of Psychiatry at the Ospedale Maggiore in Milan. He also founded, in conjunction with another physician, Serafino Biffi, the Italian Archives for Nervous Disease and Mental Illness, a periodical in which research findings could be shared and discussed.  Verga also acquired an in-depth knowledge of the anatomy of the bone system and the nervous system, and was the first to identify an anomaly of the brain that occurs in only one in six people, which became known as ‘Verga’s ventricle’.  The son of a coachman, Verga was an enthusiastic student of classics whom his parents encouraged to pursue a career in the church, yet it was medicine that became his calling.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Blood and Power: The Rise and Fall of Italian Fascism, by John Foot

In the aftermath of the First World War, the seeds of fascism were sown in Italy. While the country reeled in shock, a new movement emerged from the chaos: one that preached hatred for politicians and love for the fatherland; one that promised to build a 'New Roman Empire', and make Italy a great power once again.  Wearing black shirts and wielding guns, knives and truncheons, the supporters of the Italian Fascist Party embraced a climate of violence and rampant masculinity. Led by Benito Mussolini, they would systematically destroy the organisations of the left, murdering and torturing anyone who got in their way.  In Blood and Power, historian John Foot draws on decades of research to chart the turbulent years between 1915 and 1945, and beyond. Drawing widely from accounts of people across the political spectrum - fascists, anti-fascists, communists, anarchists, victims, perpetrators and bystanders - he tells the story of Italian Fascism and its legacy, which still, disturbingly, reverberates to this day.

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

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14 April 2024

14 April

NEW - Randolfo Pacciardi – anti-Fascist and journalist

Valiant republican opposed Mussolini and served his country

Ardent anti-Fascist Randolfo Pacciardi, who was Deputy Prime Minister and then Minister of Defence for the Italian Government between 1948 and 1953, died on this day in 1991 in Rome.  Pacciardi had to live abroad in exile for many years after the Fascists outlawed all opposition parties in 1926, but he was able to return to Italy in 1944 after the liberation of Rome. He was born in 1899 in Giuncarico in the province of Grosseto in Tuscany. By the time he was 16 years old, Pacciardi had become a member of the Partito Repubblicano Italiano (PRI) the Italian Republican party.  He was a supporter of Italy’s participation in World War I and enrolled in the officers’ school of the Italian Army. He took part in the fighting and received two silver medals and a bronze medal for military valour, a British military cross and a French croix de guerre.  After receiving a law degree from the University of Siena in 1921, Pacciardi wrote for a local newspaper in the city.  In 1922 he went to live in Rome, where he became an opponent of the violent Fascist squads of the time, and he established Italia Libera, an anti-Fascist veterans’ organisation.  Read more…

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The Milan-Sanremo cycle race

Classic event older than Giro d’Italia

The Milan-Sanremo cycle race - one of the sport’s oldest and most prestigious single-day contests - took place for the first time on this day in 1907.  Covering a distance of 286km (177 miles), the race followed a course said to have begun at the Conca Fallata Inn, next to a navigation basin on the Naviglio Pavese canal in Milan and ended on Corso Cavallotti on the outskirts of Sanremo, a seaside town on the coast of Liguria famed for its temperate Mediterranean climate.  Cycling was growing in popularity across Europe at the time, particularly in Belgium and France. Both of those countries had established single-day long distance races in the late 19th century and it is probable that these were the inspiration when Tullo Morgagni, a Milan journalist, put forward the idea for Milan-Sanremo.  Morgagni had launched what would become the Giro di Lombardia the previous year and proposed his new project to Eugenio Costamagna, director of the Milan sports newspaper Gazzetta dello Sport.  Morgagni reasoned that Sanremo’s standing at the heart of Italy’s nascent tourist industry would give the event a particular appeal.  Read more…

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Girolamo Riario - papal military leader

Assassinated after failed attempt to unseat Medici family

Girolamo Riario, the 15th century governor of Imola and Forlì who was part of a major plot to displace the powerful Medici family as rulers of Florence, was assassinated on this day in 1488. Riario, a nephew of Pope Sixtus IV who had appointed him Captain General of the Church, was unpopular with his subjects as a result of imposing high taxes, but his murder was thought to be an attempt by the noble Orsi family of Forlì to seize control of the city. Two members of the family, Checco and Ludovico, led a group of assassins armed with swords into the government palace, where Riario was set upon.  Despite the presence of guards, Riario was stabbed and slashed repeatedly.  Eventually, his dead body was left in a local piazza, surrounded by a crowd celebrating his demise, as the Orsi brothers and their gang looted the palace.  A decade earlier, Riario, who had been appointed Lord of Imola by Sixtus IV, joined with Francesco Salviati, whose family were the Papal bankers in Florence, and members of the Pazzi family in a plot to assassinate the ruler of Florence, Lorenzo de’ Medici, and his brother, Giuliano.  Read more…

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Lamberto Dalla Costa - Olympic bobsleigh champion

Fighter pilot who became first Italian to win a Gold medal

Lamberto Dalla Costa, part of the team that brought Italy its first gold medal for Olympic bobsleigh, was born on this day in 1920 in Crespano del Grappa, a small town in the Veneto. Dalla Costa was an adventurous individual with a passion for flying. He joined the Italian Air Force as a volunteer during World War Two and became a combat pilot who rose eventually to the rank of air marshall.  When Italy was chosen to host the 1956 Winter Olympics at Cortina d'Ampezzo they was a tradition of looking towards the military to provide the crews for the bobsleigh events and Dalla Costa was selected, even though he had never been involved with high-level competitive sport, after demonstrating the right level of skill and discipline.  It was an advantage when the Games came round that Dalla Costa and his colleagues were able to practise on the Cortina d'Ampezzo track, gaining familiarity with every quirk.  Partnered with another air force recruit, Major Giacomo Conti, from Palermo in Sicily, Dalla Costa registered the fastest times in all four heats and won the two-man bob event by more than a second from the second Italian crew of Eugenio Monti and Renzo Alvera.  Read more…

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Gasparo da Salò – violin maker

Founder of the Brescian school of stringed instrument craftsmen

One of Italy’s earliest violin makers, Gasparo da Salò, died on this day in 1609 in Brescia. He developed the art of string making to a high level and his surviving instruments are still admired and revered. Da Salò was born Gasparo Bertolotti in Salò, a resort on Lake Garda in 1542. His father and uncle were violinists and composers and his cousin, Bernardino, was a violinist at the Este court in Ferrara and at the Gonzaga court in Mantua. Bertolotti received a good musical education and was referred to as ‘a talented violone player’ in a 1604 document about the music at the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Bergamo. Bertolotti moved to Brescia on the death of his father and set up shop in an area where there were other instrument makers. He became known as Gasparo da Salò and his workshop quickly became one of the most important in Europe. for the production of every type of stringed instrument that was played at the time.  His business was so successful that he was able to acquire land and property and provide financial assistance to members of his family.  It is not known whether da Salò was the first craftsman to produce a violin in its modern form.  Read more…

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Gianni Rodari - children’s author

Writer whose books reflect the struggles of the lower classes in society

Writer and journalist Gianni Rodari, who became famous for creating Cipollino, a children’s book character, died on this day in 1980 in Rome. Regarded as the best modern writer for children in Italian, Rodari had been awarded the Hans Christian Andersen Medal for children’s literature in 1970, which gained him an international reputation. Cipollino, which means Little Onion, fought the unjust treatment of his fellow vegetable characters by the fruit royalty, such as Prince Lemon and the overly proud Tomato, in the garden kingdom. The main themes of the stories are the struggle of the underclass against the powerful, good versus evil and the importance of friendship in the face of difficulties. Rodari was born in 1920 in Omegna, a small town on Lake Orta in the province of Novara in northern Italy.  His father died when he was ten years old and Rodari and his two brothers were brought up by their mother in her native village of Gavirate near Varese.  Rodari trained to be a teacher and received his diploma when he was 17. He began to teach elementary classes in rural schools around Varese.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: The Archipelago: Italy Since 1945, by John Foot

Italy emerged from the Second World War in ruins. Divided, invaded and economically broken, it was a nation that some people claimed had ceased to exist. And yet, as rural society disappeared almost overnight, by the 1960s, it could boast the fastest-growing economy in the world.  In The Archipelago, historian John Foot chronicles Italy's tumultuous history from the post-war period to the present day. From the silent assimilation of Fascists into society after 1945 to the artistic peak of neorealist cinema, he examines both the corrupt and celebrated sides of the country. While often portrayed as a failed state on the margins of Europe, Italy has instead been at the centre of innovation and change - a political laboratory. This new history tells the fascinating story of a country always marked by scandal but with the constant ability to re-invent itself.  Comprising original research and lively insights, The Archipelago chronicles the crises and modernisations of more than seventy years of post-war Italy, from its fields, factories, squares and housing estates to Rome's political intrigue.

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

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