Alcide De Gasperi - prime minister who rebuilt Italy

Christian Democrat founder was jailed by Mussolini

Alcide De Gasperi

Born on this day in 1881, Alcide De Gasperi was the Italian prime minister who founded the Christian Democrat party and led the rebuilding of the country after World War II.

An opponent of Benito Mussolini who survived being locked up by the Fascist dictator, he was the head of eight consecutive governments between 1945 and 1953, a record for longevity in post-War Italian politics.

Although Silvio Berlusconi has spent more time in office - nine years and 53 days compared with De Gasperi's seven years and 238 days - the media tycoon's time in power was fragmented, whereas De Gasperi served continuously until his resignation in 1953.

As prime minister, De Gasperi was largely responsible for Italy's post-War economic salvation and for helping to hold the line between East and West as the Soviet Union established its border on Italy's doorstep.

During his premiership, Italy became a republic, signed a peace treaty with the Allies, joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and became an ally of the United States, who in turn provided considerable help in reviving the shattered Italian economy.

De Gasperi took advantage of America's nervousness about the rise of the Soviet-funded Italian Communist Party, negotiating a peace treaty much more favourable to Italy than might have been expected and securing immediate financial help towards rebuilding Italy's damaged infrastructure. In return he promised to mobilise opposition to the Communists.

America then supported De Gasperi's Christian Democrats in the crucial 1948 election not only through financial contributions, some above board but others less so, but also through propaganda, with Italian-Americans encouraged to urge their relatives at home to vote against the Communists.

The tomb of Alcide de Gasperi in the
Basilica di San Lorenzo fuori le Mura
(Photo: Panairjdde CC BY-SA 3.0)

De Gasperi is also credited with introducing social reforms to help working Italians enjoy the benefits of better housing, improved pensions and unemployment insurance.  A pro-Europe politician, he saw that Italy became a member of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), which evolved into the European Union (EU).

The Christian Democrat Party was formed after the fall of Benito Mussolini's Fascists, with De Gasperi the driving force.

Born in Pieve Tesino, a town in the South Tyrol area of Trentino-Alto Adige today but then part of the Austria-Hungary, he was a member of the Austrian parliament for six years before his home region became part of Italy under the terms of the settlement following World War I.

Continuing his political career, he was among the founders of the Italian People's Party (PPI) in 1919 and served as a deputy in the Italian parliament between 1921 and 1924, the period that coincided with the rise of Fascism.

At first, De Gasperi was keen for the PPI to be part of Mussolini's first government but this support wavered as the Fascists began to introduce major constitutional changes and attempted to subdue their opponents with violence and intimidation.

When the socialist politician, Giacomo Matteoti, who had spoken out against the violence, was murdered, De Gasperi himself began to campaign against the Fascists.  In 1927 he was arrested and sentenced to four years in jail.

In poor health, he was released after 18 months following an appeal from the Catholic Church.  In serious financial difficulties, he found work as a cataloguer in the Vatican Library and remained there for 14 years.

For most of this time, he kept a low profile, but after Mussolini's grip on power began to loosen, he resumed his political activity by forming another party, Democrazia Christiana, drawing on the ideology of the PPI, and publishing his Ideas for Reconstruction, after which he was appointed the party's first general secretary.

De Gasperi died in 1954, a year after he resigned as prime minister following his party's failure to secure a majority in the 1953 elections and only two months after stepping down as leader.  He had returned to Trentino but political office in Italy at the time did not bring significant financial reward and it is said that he died with not enough money even to pay for a dignified burial.

Fortunately, the Italian government felt his achievements deserved to be recognised with a state funeral.  His remains are buried at the Basilica di San Lorenzo fuori le Mura in Rome.

The Fountain of Neptune in Piazza Duomo in
Trento (Pic: Matteo Ianeselli CC BY-SA 4.0)

Travel tip:

Trentino-Alto Adige is a region bordering Switzerland and Austria that includes part of the Dolomites, a section of the Italian Alps notable for its sawtooth limestone peaks. Trento, the region's capital, has some notable Renaissance palaces and the region as a whole is dotted with medieval castles.

Travel tip:

The Basilica di San Lorenzo fuori le Mura can be found in Piazzale San Lorenzo, close to the University of Rome and accessible by following the Via Tiburtina to the north-west of the main Roma Termini railway station.  There are bus services along the route.  The Basilica suffered bomb damage during World War II and had to be rebuilt.  The original was constructed in the fourth century, was rebuilt 200 years later and added to at various times subsequently.

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Giacomo Casanova – adventurer

Romantic figure escaped from prison in a gondola 

A portrait of Giacomo Girolamo Casanova painted in 1760
 by the German artist Anton Raphael Mengs

Author and adventurer Giacomo Girolamo Casanova was born on this day in 1725 in Venice.

He is so well known for his affairs with women that his surname is now used as an alternative word for ‘womaniser’.

But Casanova’s autobiography, ‘Story of My Life’, has also become regarded as one of the most authentic sources of information about European social life produced during the 18th century.

Casanova was widely travelled, had several different professions and was a prolific writer but he spent a lot of his time having romantic liaisons and gambling.

The Venice into which he was born was the pleasure capital of Europe, a required stop on the Grand Tour for young men coming of age, because of the attractions of the Carnival, the gambling houses and the courtesans.

Casanova graduated from the University of Padua with a degree in law and had a short career as an ecclesiastical lawyer before setting out on his adventures.

He was attractive to women, being tall and dark and wearing his long hair powdered and curled.

At various times he worked as a clergyman, military officer, violinist, businessman and spy. But throughout his life it was a recurring pattern that he embarked on passionate affairs with women, ran out of money and was imprisoned for debt.

Casanova wrote more than 20 novels, plays, and collections of essays and letters but despite his talent he was frequently distracted by his quest for pleasure and never worked for sustained periods at anything.

The Bridge of Sighs links the Doge's
Palace with the prison 

He would go off on his travels abroad and then return to Venice to carry on seducing women, gambling, getting into fights and making enemies.

Eventually he was arrested and imprisoned in a wing of the Doge’s Palace in terrible conditions. According to his memoirs, he hatched a daring escape plan, making a hole in the ceiling of his cell, climbing on to the roof, breaking back into the building through a window and walking out past the guard on the main entrance before making his escape in a gondola across the lagoon.

He fled to Paris, where he started the first state lottery. He was then sent on a spying mission by a Government minister and earned enough money to start his own business. But he became distracted by having affairs with his female employees, lost his money and ended up in prison for debt again.

On his return to Venice after many years he was treated like a celebrity for a while and dined out on the tale of his escape from his prison cell in the Doge’s Palace. But he was soon expelled from the city and had to set off on his travels again.

He spent his final years living in the Castle of Dux in Bohemia as librarian to Count Joseph Karl von Waldstein. There he enjoyed the time to write and produced his memoirs.

Casanova died at the age of 73 in Dux, which is now part of the Czech Republic, but the exact location of his grave is not known.

Travel tip:

Casanova’s cell in the Doge’s Palace was at the top of the building. These cells were referred to as piombi cells because of the piombo (lead) in the roof. He was better off than the prisoners left to fester in the pozzi cells, which were named after wells, because they were all dark dungeons. On a tour of the Doge’s Palace you can cross the Bridge of Sighs to the prison and see the cell from where Casanova planned his audacious escape.

The first gambling house in Venice required players to
wear masks, as depicted in this 18th century painting

Travel tip:

The streets between St Marks’ Square and the Rialto Bridge were Casanova’s stamping ground. Calle Vallaresso next to the Piazza was home to several gambling houses he frequented. Nowadays tourists flock to Harry’s Bar at the end to sample the Bellini cocktail invented by its founder, Giuseppe Cipriani. In the adjacent Calle del Ridotto, the first public gaming house in Europe was allowed to open in 1638 with the proviso that players came wearing a mask.  Casanova wined and dined his conquests at Cantina Do Spade near the Rialto Bridge, even mentioning the traditional Venetian osteria, in Calle delle Do Spade, in his memoirs.

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Arrigo Sacchi -- football coach

AC Milan manager's tactics revolutionised football in Italy

Arrigo Sacchi, former coach of AC Milan who
led Italy to 1994 World Cup final

Arrigo Sacchi, the football coach who led AC Milan to back-to-back European Cups and steered Italy to a World Cup final, was born on this day 70 years ago in Fusignano, a small town not far from Ravenna in Emilia-Romagna.

Unusually among top coaches, Sacchi never played football as a professional.  Aware of his limited ability, he quickly decided he would concentrate instead on becoming a manager, taking charge of a local amateur team, Baracca Lugo, when he was just 26.

Literally, he worked his way up from the bottom, making a living as a shoe salesman while training his players in his spare time.

Yet step by step he ascended to the very top of the game, landing jobs on the coaching staffs at Cesena, Rimini and Fiorentina before Parma, then in the third tier of the Italian football pyramid, made him head coach in 1985.

He won promotion to Serie B in his first season and finished only three points short of promotion to Serie A in his second year, when Parma also pulled off one of the biggest upsets of the season, knocking AC Milan out of the Coppa Italia, which is Italy's equivalent of England's FA Cup.

Silvio Berlusconi, the media mogul and former Prime Minister who still owns AC Milan, was so impressed he invited Sacchi to become Milan's manager from the start of the 1987-88 season.

Despite much scepticism in Italy's football press, many of whom believed that a man who had never played above amateur level could not possibly coach a team of Milan's standing, the appointment was a massive success. The rossoneri were Serie A champions for the first time in nine years in Sacchi's first season, after which they won the European Cup in 1989 and 1990.

In four years at San Siro he won eight trophies, a record worthy of enormous respect in any circumstances.  What was even more impressive was that he achieved this success while breaking the mould as far as Italian football was concerned.

More reading:

How fate was unkind to record Milan signing Gianluigi Lentini

Italy's heartbreak at Italia '90

The game in Italy had become ultra defensive, teams opting for stifling tactics designed solely to avoid defeat.  Yet Sacchi, inspired as a young man by the great attacking teams of Honved and Real Madrid in the club competitions and by the football played by Brazil and The Netherlands at international level, wanted Milan to be more like them.

He trained his players to be adept in every position, so that forwards could defend and defenders could attack, and introduced a high-tempo, pressing style.  He turned Milan into one of the most exciting teams to watch, built around the brilliance of three Dutch players, Frank Rijkaard, Marco van Basten and Ruud Gullit.  

In the first of the two European Cup triumphs, Milan beat Real Madrid 6-1 on aggregate in the semi-finals, which was seen as a symbolic moment in their development, before trouncing Steaua Bucharest 4-0 in the final, with Gullit and Van Basten scoring two goals each.

Roberto Baggio bows his head after his miss in the
penalty shoot-out handed the 1994 World Cup to Brazil

The former shoe salesman was hailed as a genius and a football revolutionary. After Sacchi left Milan to become the new national coach, his succes- sor Fabio Capello won four league titles and another European Cup by continuing to play in the same attacking fashion and other coaches followed suit.  Even today, Sacchi's pressing game has high-profile disciples, among them Rafa Benitez, the former Liverpool, Chelsea and Real Madrid manager now with Newcastle United, and Jurgen Klopp, who won the German Bundesliga title with Borussia Dortmund and is now at Liverpool.

Sacchi might also have won the World Cup had Roberto Baggio, exhausted and stricken with a hamstring injury, not missed the crucial kick in the penalty shoot-out that settled the 1994 final against Brazil in the United States.  As it was, Sacchi had demonstrated his adaptability, tweaking his tactics to give full rein to Baggio's creative talents and inspiring from his team a performance that almost mended the heartbreak of 1990.

Throughout all this, Sacchi almost revelled in his lack of a playing pedigree, particularly in his early days at Milan when journalists openly questioned his credentials, once flooring an inquisitor with the famous reply: "I didn't realise that to become a jockey you first had to have been a horse."

The sixth century Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna
(Photo: Sailko CC BY-SA 3.0)

Travel tip:

Much of Fusignano's history was destroyed during World War Two, when it found itself on the front line in a major battle between allied forces and the retreating Germans. Nearby Ravenna, however, has many attractions, including the magnificent sixth century Basilica of San Vitale, the tomb of the poet Dante Alighieri in the Basilica of San Francesco, and the pretty Piazza del Popolo.

Travel tip:

On a visit to Milan, football fans can learn more about Arrigo Sacchi's success and that of all the teams in the club's 117-year history by looking round the Mondo Milan Museum, which has a large collection of historic memorabilia as well as many interactive features.  It can be found within the Casa Milan, the club's new city headquarters - not to be confused with its stadium - in the Portello district of Milan.  Casa Milan is generally open from 10am to 7pm.  For more information, visit www.casamilan.acmilan.com/en

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Bianca Maria Visconti – Duchess of Milan

Ruler fought alongside her troops to defend her territory

Bianca Maria Visconti

Bianca Maria Visconti, the daughter of Filippo Maria Visconti, Duke of Milan, was born on this day in 1425 near Settimo Pavese in Lombardy.

A strong character, her surviving letters showed she was able to run Milan efficiently after becoming Duchess and even supposedly donned a suit of armour and rode with her troops into battle, earning herself the nickname, Warrior Woman.

Bianca Maria was the illegitimate daughter of the Duke of Milan, and was sent to live with her mother in comfortable conditions in a castle where she received a good education.

At the age of six she was betrothed for political reasons to the condottiero, Francesco I Sforza, who was 24 years older than her.

Despite the political situation changing many times over the years, Bianca Maria and Francesco Sforza did get married in 1441 when she was 16. The wedding took place in Cremona, which was listed as part of her dowry. The celebrations lasted several days and included a banquet, tournaments, a palio and a huge cake made in the shape of the city’s Torrazzo, the bell tower.

Bianca Maria quickly proved her skills in administration and diplomacy and at the age of 17 was named Regent of the Marche.

Il Torrazzo, the tallest bell tower in Italy

After the death of her father, Bianca Maria and Francesco set off for Milan with their armies and Francesco spent three years trying to reconquer the cities that had declared independence from Milan after Filippo Maria Visconti’s death.

In 1448, while Francesco was away fighting in Pavia, the Venetians attacked Cremona and it is claimed Bianca Maria put on a suit of armour and went with her troops to defend the city.

When Bianca and Francesco were welcomed to Milan as the new duke and duchess they refused to travel in the triumphal wagon and instead chose to ride to the Duomo on horseback.

With Francesco constantly occupied with his army, Bianca Maria devoted herself to the administration of the Duchy and to public works.

After the death of Francesco, Bianca Maria moved back to live in Cremona. She was in the process of returning to Milan to attend her son’s marriage when she fell ill. She died in Cremona a few months later at the age of 43 and was buried in the Duomo in Milan alongside her husband.

Travel tip:

Cremona has the tallest bell tower in Italy, il Torrazzo, which measures more than 112 metres in height. The city is also famous for producing torrone, a type of nougat. It is thought this concoction, of almonds, honey and egg whites, was first created in the shape of il Torrazzo to mark the marriage of Bianca Maria to Francesco in 1441. To sample the many different types of torrone now made, visit Negozio Sperlari in Via Solferino in the centre of the city.

The Museo Stradivariano in Cremona is
dedicated to the violin maker Stradivari

Travel tip:

Cremona is also famous as the birthplace of Antonio Stradivari, who is considered to be the greatest ever violin maker. He is believed to have produced more than 1,100 instruments, some of which have achieved millions of pounds when sold at auction in modern times. There is a Museo Stradivariano in Cremona in Via Ugolani Dati, housed in the elegant rooms of a former palace. Visitors can see more than 700 relics from Stradivari’s workshop, which date back to the 17th and 18th centuries.

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The Sicilian Vespers

How the French lost control of the island they were ruling

Women fleeing from the violent uprising
known as the Sicilian Vespers, as depicted
by the artist Domenico Morelli

As the citizens of Palermo walked to vespers - evening prayers - in the church of Santo Spirito on this day in 1282, a French soldier grossly insulted a pretty young Sicilian woman.

The girl’s enraged fiancé immediately drew his dagger and stabbed the soldier through the heart.

The violence was contagious and the local people exploded in fury against the French occupying forces. More than 200 French soldiers were killed at the outset and the violence spread to other parts of Sicily the next day resulting in a full-scale rebellion against French rule.

This bloody event, which led to Charles of Anjou losing control of Sicily, became known in history as the Sicilian Vespers.

King Charles was detested for his cold-blooded cruelty and his officials had made the lives of the ordinary Sicilians miserable.

After he was overthrown, Sicily enjoyed almost a century of independence.

There have been different versions given of the events that led to the rebellion against the French and it is not known exactly how the uprising started.

But to many Italians the story of the Sicilian Vespers has always been inspirational and Guiseppe Verdi even created an opera about it in 1855.

The 12th century Chiesa dello Spirito Santo in Palermo
(Photo: Enzian44 CC BY-SA 3.0)

Travel tip:

The 12th century Church of the Holy Spirit (Chiesa dello Spirito Santo), where the violence known as the Sicilian Vespers exploded, used to be in a park outside the city walls but it is now part of the Sant’Orsola cemetery in Palermo.

Travel tip:

The Teatro Regio in Parma was the setting in 1855 for the premiere of Verdi’s five-act opera, I Vespri Siciliani, which was loosely based on the story of the Sicilian Vespers. The theatre had been built with a 1,400 seat auditorium and inaugurated in 1829. It now honours Verdi, who was born at nearby Busseto, with a festival every October. 

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Terence Hill – actor

Film star progressed from playing cowboys to become a popular parish priest

Terence Hill was born as Mario Girotti on this day in 1939 in Venice.

He became an actor as a child and went on to have many starring roles in films, particularly spaghetti westerns.

Terence Hill (left), born Mario Girotti, in his most famous
role as the parish priest Don Matteo

It was when he began acting in that genre that he changed his name to Terence Hill at the suggestion of one of his producers, who told him that Italian-made westerns were better received in English-speaking countries if the names in the credits sounded American. 

He is said to have settled on Hill after the first name of his German-born mother, Hildegard, and Terence after the name of a Roman poet and playwright he admired.

Terence Hill later became a household name in Italy as the actor who played the lead character in the long-running television series, Don Matteo.

Hill lived in Germany as a child but then his family moved to Rome, the capital of Italy’s film industry. When he was 12 years old, Hill was spotted by director Dino Risi and given a part in Vacanze col gangster, an adventure movie in which five youngsters help a dangerous gangster escape from prison.

Other film parts quickly followed and at the height of his popularity, Hill was said to be among the highest-paid actors in Italy.

Hill had a leading role in Il Gattopardo
(The Leopard) under his real name

 
His most famous films are They Call Me Trinity and My Name is Nobody, in which he appeared with Henry Fonda. Another of his films, Django, Prepare a coffin was featured at the 64th Venice film festival in 2007.

Hill also had a major role in Luchino Visconti’s film, The Leopard along with Burt Lancaster, Claudia Cardinale and Alain Delon, in which he was listed in the cast under his real name.

Since 2000, on Italian television, Hill has portrayed Don Matteo, an inspirational parish priest who assists the Carabinieri to solve crimes that affect his community in Gubbio.

Hill received an international ‘Outstanding Actor of the Year’ award for this role at the 42nd Monte Carlo television festival.

The next episode of Series 10 of Don Matteo will be shown on Thursday, 31 March at 21.20 Italian time on Rai Uno.

The Piazza della Signoria in Gubbio
(Photo: Lisa1963 (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Travel tip:

Gubbio in Umbria, where Don Matteo is filmed, is a small medieval town perched on the lower slopes of Mount Ingino in the Apennines. Via della Repubblica, the main street, leads to Piazza della Signoria where there is a magnificent 14th century palace, Palazzo dei Consoli, which houses the Tavole Eugubine, bronze tablets written in an ancient Umbrian language. From the square there are wonderful views over the town and surrounding countryside.

Travel tip:

Cinecittà in Rome, the hub of the Italian film industry, is a large studio complex to the south of the city, built during the fascist era under the personal direction of Benito Mussolini and his son, Vittorio. The studios were bombed by the Allies in the Second World War but were rebuilt and used again in the 1950s for large productions, such as Ben Hur. These days a range of productions, from television drama to music videos, are filmed there and it has its own dedicated Metro stop.

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Alberto Grimaldi - film producer

Spaghetti Western trilogy gave Naples producer his big break

Alberto Grimaldi

Film producer Alberto Grimaldi, who celebrates his 91st birthday today, boasts an extraordinary list of credits that includes Last Tango in Paris, The Canterbury Tales, Man of La Mancha, Fellini's Casanova, 1900, Ginger and Fred and Gangs of New York.

Born in Naples on this day in 1925, Grimaldi trained as a lawyer and it was in that capacity that he initially found work in the cinema industry in the 1950s.

However, he could see the money-making potential in production and in the early 1960s set up his own company, Produzioni Europee Associate (PEA).

His first three productions, cashing in on the popularity in Italy of westerns, enjoyed some success but it was a meeting with Sergio Leone, the Italian director, that earned him his big break.

Leone, whose first venture into the western genre, A Fistful of Dollars, had been an unexpected hit both for him and the young American actor, Clint Eastwood, was busy planning the sequel when a dispute arose with his producers over the cost of the movie.

Movie poster advertising Scorsese's
epic Gangs of New York

As it happened, Grimaldi's first production, The Shadow of Zorro, had been filmed, like A Fistful of Dollars, on location in Spain.  Leone knew of Grimaldi's legal background and initially sought his advice on settling the dispute.  Ultimately, they agreed to collaborate and the Leone classics, For a Few Dollars More and The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly, also starring Eastwood, were PEA productions.

Both were considerable box office hits and established Grimaldi's name, opening many doors.

By the 1970s, Grimaldi was in a position to produce movies by many of Italy's top directors, including Federico Fellini, Bernardo Bertolucci, and Pier Paolo Pasolini, as well as supporting the artistic aspirations of other Italian directors, such as Gillo Pontecorvo, Elio Petri and Francesco Rosi.

He became more selective in his projects in the 1980s, notably turning down the chance to work with Leone again on Once Upon a Time in America. After producing Fellini's comedy drama Ginger and Fred, a 1986 film about two Italian impersonators of the American dance movie legends, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, it was 16 years before his name was attached to the $100 million Martin Scorcese epic, Gangs of New York, which was released in 2002.  By then Grimaldi was aged 77.

Via Partenope in 1935

Travel tip:

Grimaldi's home city of Naples has changed little in his lifetime.  The black and white postcard image shows the Via Partenope, bordering the waterfront in the Santa Lucia district of the city, in 1935, when Grimaldi was a 10-year-old boy.  It is scarcely different today, 81 years on.

Over the rooftops of Naples towards Mergellina and
Posillipo, as seen from Castel Sant'Elmo

Travel tip:

Visitors to Naples who crave a more peaceful side to the city away from the chaos of the Spaccanapoli or the Spanish Quarter should venture north from Piazza del Plebiscito and the Royal Palace on to the long promenade of Via Francesco Caracciolo towards Mergellina and the residential quarter of Posillipo, the traditional home of the more wealthy Neapolitans.



More reading:

Sergio Leone - Spaghetti western creator

Federico Fellini's cinematic legacy

How Franco Zeffirelli became a household name

Also on this day:

1472: The birth of the great Renaissance painter Fra Bartolommeo

1918: The birth of opera star Anselmo Colzani

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