Princess Maria Antonia of Naples and Sicily

Sad, short life of a Neapolitan princess

The youngest daughter of Ferdinand, King of Naples and Sicily, Princess Maria Antonia, was born on this day in 1784 at the Royal Palace in Caserta.

Princess Maria Antonia was named after her aunt, Marie Antoinette, the Queen of France, who was executed by guillotine in Paris in 1793.

The Royal Palace in Naples

Marie Antoinette was the favourite sister of the Princess’s mother, Maria Carolina of Austria, who became opposed to the military expansion of the new French republic as a result of her sister’s horrific death.

Princess Maria Antonia’s own fate was sealed when she became engaged to Infante Ferdinand, Prince of Asturias, who later became King Ferdinand VII of Spain. 

She married him in Barcelona in 1802.

When she failed to provide Ferdinand with an heir, suffering two miscarriages, there were rumours that Maria Antonia, whose title was now Princess of Asturias, was plotting to poison both her mother in law, the Queen of Spain, and the Spanish Prime Minister. This was allegedly to avenge her aunt, Marie Antoinette, because Spain was becoming increasingly dominated by Napoleon.

The Queen of Spain encouraged the rumours and had the princess’s books and clothes searched.

Then, at the age of 21, Princess Maria Antonia suddenly died, supposedly of tuberculosis. There were rumours that she herself had been the victim of poisoning, but there was no real evidence.

The Princess was buried at El Escorial in Spain and her husband went on to marry three more times. His last wife was Maria Antonia’s own niece, Princess Maria Cristina of Naples and Sicily, who had been born a month before her death in 1806.

Travel tip:

The Royal Palace, where Princess Maria Antonia was born, was built in Caserta for King Charles VII. Work began in 1752 on what was to become the largest royal residence in the world. The architect, Luigi Vanvitelli, also designed a magnificent park with a huge waterfall for the palace, which is situated about 35 kilometres from Naples.


Travel tip:

The Royal Palace (Palazzo Reale) in Naples is another of the magnificent residences of the Kings of Naples. The palace is at the eastern end of Piazza del Plebiscito and dates back to 1600. It now houses a 30-room museum and the largest library in southern Italy, which are both open to the public.

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Donatello – Renaissance sculptor

Work by prolific artist still on display for all to see

Early Renaissance sculptor Donatello died on this day in Florence in 1466.

Generally acknowledged as the greatest sculptor of the 15th century, Donatello left a legacy of wonderful statues in marble and bronze, some still out in the open and delighting visitors to Italy free of charge today.

Donatello's bronze equestrian statue in front of
the Basilica di Sant' Antonio in Padua

He was born Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi in Florence in about 1386. He studied classical sculpture, which later influenced his style, and then worked in a goldsmith’s workshop and in the studio of artist Lorenzo Ghiberti.

One of his most famous early works is a statue of David, originally intended for the Cathedral, but which stood instead for many years in Palazzo Vecchio in Florence.

Donatello’s work also shows influences of the architect Filippo Brunelleschi, a friend with whom he often travelled to Rome.

Brunelleschi’s style can be seen in Donatello’s statues of St Mark and St George, executed for the exterior of the Church of Orsanmichele in Florence, which represent the first translation into sculpture of the architect’s laws on perspective.

Donatello was invited to Padua in 1443, where he was to produce one of his greatest works, the bronze equestrian statue of Gattamelata.

The statue was completed in about 1450 and portrays the military leader Erasmus da Narni, who was known as Gattamelata (honeyed cat).

It is believed to be the earliest Renaissance equestrian statue that still survives and was a precedent for later sculptures honouring military heroes.

The soldier and his horse are both portrayed in life size by Donatello, instead of being larger than life as with classical equestrian statues.

Donatello returned to Florence and for his last commission produced reliefs for the bronze pulpits in the Basilica of San Lorenzo. He was still working on them in 1466 when he died. Donatello is buried in the Basilica of San Lorenzo.

Travel tip:

The Statue of Gattamelata still stands in the open air for all to see to the left of the Basilica di Sant’Antonio as you approach from the direction of Via del Santo. Donatello was commissioned by the military leader’s family to create a monument in memory of the great Commander of the Venetian Republic. The statue is mounted on a pedestal that resembles a sepulchre. Gattamelata appears in the style of a Roman emperor astride his horse. His head is uncovered and there is a decisive expression on his face.

Travel tip:

The Basilica of San Lorenzo in Florence was the parish church of the Medici family. Donatello was about 74 when he began work on the bronze pulpits in the nave, which depict Christ’s passion and resurrection, and they were not quite finished when he died. His tomb can be found in the north transept of the church.

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Guglielmo Marconi – inventor and electrical engineer

Message received meant a scientific breakthrough

Guglielmo Marconi received the first transatlantic radio signal using equipment he had invented himself on this day in 1901 in Newfoundland.

Marconi was credited with the invention of radio as a result and shared the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1909 with another scientist, Karl Ferdinand Braun.

Bologna where Marconi was born and went to University

The message Marconi received, which was regarded as a great scientific advance, was the letter ‘S’ in Morse Code. It had been sent from a transmission station Marconi had set up in Cornwall, 2,200 miles away.

The inventor was born in Bologna in 1874. His father, Giuseppe Marconi, was a nobleman and landowner from Porretta Terme and his mother was of Scottish and Irish descent.

Marconi was brought up in Bedford in England as a young child but after moving back to Italy he was educated privately and then went to study at the University of Bologna.

While living in the Villa Griffone at Pontecchio near Bologna he began to conduct experiments to create wireless telegraphy.

He went to England to continue his work and by 1897 had transmitted a Morse code signal over a distance of six kilometres. He then sent the world’s first wireless communication over open sea.

Guglielmo Marconi

But it was the message he received in 1901 in Newfoundland that is now known to have laid the foundations for modern communications.
Marconi died in Rome in 1937 at the age of 63 and was given a state funeral.

All BBC and Post Office transmitters in Britain observed a two minute silence at the start of his funeral.

Travel tip:

Villa Griffone at Pontecchio, where Marconi conducted his experiments, is about 15 kilometres from Bologna. It is now the seat of the Guglielmo Marconi Foundation and the Marconi Musum dedicated to the origins and development of radio communications. Marconi’s remains lie there in a mausoleum designed by Marcello Piacentini. Visit www.fgm.it for more details.

Travel tip:

Porretta Terme, where Marconi’s father, Giuseppe, owned land, is a spa town south of Bologna in Emilia Romagna near the region's border with Tuscany, known since Roman times for the therapeutic quality of its thermal springs.

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Carlo Ponti – film producer

The man who married Sophia Loren twice

Carlo Ponti started his career in film
as a lawyer negotiating contracts

Carlo Ponti, the producer of many iconic Italian films, was born on this day in 1912 in Magenta near Milan.

He studied law at Milan University and, after joining his father’s law firm in Milan, became involved in the film business through negotiating contracts.

His production of Mario Soldati’s Piccolo Mondo Antico about the Italian struggle against the Austrian occupation was his first success in 1940. But he was briefly jailed for allegedly undermining relations with Nazi Germany.

He went on to produce many of the popular and financially successful films of the 1960s and 1970s, such as Vittorio de Sica's Marriage Italian Style, David Lean’s Doctor Zhivago and Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blowup.

But Ponti also became famous for his love affair and two marriages to the film star Sophia Loren, who was born Sofia Villani Scicolone in Pozzuoli near Naples.

Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni in
Marriage Italian Style, produced by Carlo Ponti

Ponti met her while he was judging a beauty contest in which she was competing, was captivated by her looks, and subsequently turned her into a film star and changed her name.

He was already married but he obtained a Mexican divorce in order to marry Sophia, who was more than 20 years younger than him, as divorce was then forbidden in Italy.

But their first marriage was declared illegal and had to be annulled. The couple moved to France and became French citizens so that Ponti could again divorce his first wife. He married Sophia for the second time in France in 1966.

They had two sons and four grandchildren and remained together until Ponti’s death in Geneva in 2007.

Travel tip:

Magenta, the birthplace of Carlo Ponti, is a small town in Lombardy, about 30 minutes from Milan by train. It was the site of a battle in the Second War of Italian Independence in 1859.  The colour of the uniforms worn by the French troops was later described as 'magenta' after the name of the town.

The volcanic landscape of Solfatara is an attraction
for visitors to Loren's home town of Pozzuoli

Travel tip:

Pozzuoli, the birthplace of Sophia Loren, is a town near Naples that has always been affected by underground volcanic activity. The amount of tremors and seismic activity in the 1980s caused thousands of people to leave. There are many Greek and Roman remains to see there and Pozzuoli's Solfatara, a volcanic crater, became such a popular tourist sight that it was once a stop on the Grand Tour.

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Luigi Pirandello - playwright, poet and novelist

Brilliant writing was born out of ‘chaos’

Sicilian writer Luigi Pirandello died on this day in Rome in 1936.

Luigi Pirandello, pictured in 1898

Famous for his play ‘Six Characters in Search of an Author’, (Sei Personaggi in Cerca d’Autore), Pirandello was also a prolific writer of novels, short stories and poetry, some of which were written in his native Sicilian dialect.

His plays are often seen as the forerunners of the Theatre of the Absurd dramas of Samuel Beckett and Eugène Ionesco.

Pirandello’s contribution to the theatre was recognised in 1934 when he was awarded the Nobel prize for literature.

Pirandello was literally born in Chaos. The name of the village near Agrigento in Sicily where his mother gave birth to him in 1867 is Caos, the Italian word for ‘chaos’, or in Sicilian, u Càvusu.

He was educated at home and had written his first play by the time he was 12. When his family moved to Palermo, he completed his school education and, after a spell working with his father in the sulphur industry, he registered at the University of Palermo.

He later moved to Rome to complete his studies, which gave him the chance to go to the theatre regularly, and he also studied for a while in Bonn.

His writing career took off after ‘Six Characters in Search of an Author’ was first presented in 1921 at Teatro Valle in Rome.

But his personal life became increasingly difficult. His wife became mentally ill, which had disturbing effects on the rest of his family and, although he tried to look after her at home for many years, she eventually had to go into an asylum. His writing often dealt with the themes of madness, illusion and isolation.

Pirandello died alone at his home in Rome. He had left instructions for a simple funeral followed by cremation, but his wishes were ignored and he was given a state funeral.

The house near Agrigento where Pirandello was born

Travel Tip:

Agrigento is on the southern coast of Sicily and is built on the site of an ancient Greek city. Its most famous sight is the Valley of the Temples (Valle dei Templi) a large sacred area where seven monumental Greek temples were constructed during the sixth and fifth centuries BC. 

Travel tip:

Rome’s Teatro Valle, where the premiere of ‘Six Characters in Search of an Author’ was staged, was built in 1726 near the Pantheon. At first the theatre staged a mixture of opera and drama but from the middle of the 19th century it staged only plays. Teatro Valle became the scene of real-life drama in 2011 when it was occupied by theatre workers protesting over plans to privatise the venue. 

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Carlo Azeglio Ciampi - prime minister and president

The politician who took Italy into the euro

The politician and banker, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, was born on this day in 1920 in Livorno.

Carlo Azeglio Ciampi
Photo: Presidency of the Italian Republic

He was the 49th Prime Minister of Italy between 1993 and 1994 and the tenth president, in office from 1999 to 2006.

Ciampi studied ancient Greek literature in Pisa, before being called up to do military duty, but in 1943 he refused to stay with the Fascists and took refuge in Abruzzo.

He managed to get to Bari, where he joined the Italian resistance movement.

After the war, he gained a doctorate in law from Pisa University and began working at the Banca d’Italia. He went on to become Governor of the bank and then President of the National Bureau de Change.

Ciampi was the first-non parliamentarian prime minister of Italy for more than 100 years, appointed by the President, Oscar Luigi Scalfaro, to oversee a technical government.

Later, as the treasury minister under Romano Prodi and Massimo d’Alema, Ciampi, a staunch supporter of the EU, adopted the euro currency for Italy.

When he was elected president, he had a broad majority and was only the second president ever to be elected at the first ballot. He was held in high regard by all the political groups in parliament.

Rome's Palazzo Quirinale, official residence of
the Italian President

He was succeeded by Giorgio Napoletano and is currently a senator for life in the Italian senate.

Travel tip:

Livorno is a port on the western coast of Tuscany, which deals with thousands of cruise ship passengers. The city used to be known as Leghorn in English and there is an English cemetery in Via Giuseppe Verdi, with the graves of many former British residents, including the novelist. Tobias Smollett.

Travel tip:

Abruzzo is a region on the Adriatic coast, bordered by Marche to the north, Lazio to the west and Molise to the south. One third of its territory is made up of national parks and nature reserves that are home to protected species, such as the brown bear.

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Feast of the Immaculate Conception

Prayers are followed by bonfires and feasting

The Feast of the Immaculate Conception is celebrated on this day throughout Italy every year.

Christmas tree in Salerno
lit up for the festivities
Photo: Soloxsalerno (CC BY-SA 3.0)

It is a public holiday everywhere, when banks and offices are closed, special masses take place in the churches and people celebrate the start of Christmas.

It is an official festa in the Christian calendar, when the immaculate conception of Jesus is celebrated. The day commemorates Mary, the mother of Jesus, being given the grace of God to live a life ‘free of sin.’

Many people attend Mass and the Pope leads the celebrations from Rome.

The day was officially declared a festa by the Vatican in 1854.

It marks the official start of the Christmas season in Italy, when the lights and trimmings go up.

The shops are open and do a brisk trade, with many people not at work taking the opportunity to do some Christmas shopping.

Bonfires are lit in some parts of Italy and the different areas celebrate with their own traditional food and wine.

Travel tip:

Since 1953, the Pope has visited the Column of the Immaculate Conception in Piazza Mignanelli in Rome on 8 December and laid flowers at the base of this monument to the Virgin Mary.

Christmas market in Piazza Navona
Photo: Mitravabanerjee [CC BY-SA 3.0)

Travel tip:

A big Christmas market is held every year in Piazza Navona in the centre of Rome, running until Epiphany on 6 January. The stalls sell Christmas decorations and gifts, nativity figures, traditional food, roasted chestnuts and hot wine.



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