Lamberto Dalla Costa - Olympic bobsleigh champion

Fighter pilot who became first Italian to win a Gold medal

Lamberto Dalla Costa is carried by members of
the Italian team after his victory in 1956

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 Treviso province of the Veneto situated where the Venetian plain meets the foothills of the Alps at its northern edge.

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 subsequently became a combat pilot who rose eventually to the rank of air marshall.  His exploits in action earned him a silver medal for valour.

When Italy was chosen to host the 1956 Winter Olympics at Cortina d'Ampezzo they were determined to have a successful Games and were looking for improvement in bobsleigh in particular, having competed in all six previous Olympics without reaching the podium.

There 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.

Evening in Cortina d'Ampezzo, looking
towards Campanile Filippo and Giacomo

It turned out to be Italy's only gold at the Games.  Monti won silver in both the two and four-man events and went on to become one of Italy's most successful Winter Olympians, winning six medals in total, including two golds at the 1968 Games in Grenoble.

Dalla Costa and Conti's success inspired a new surge of interest in bobsleigh in Italy and for the four winter Games Italy was the dominant country, collecting nine medals in the two events.

Already approaching his 36th birthday, Dalla Costa competed for another year but retired after the 1957 World Championships.  He was awarded the gold medal by the Italian Olympic Committee in 1965. He died in 1982 at the age of 62 in Bergamo.

Travel tip:

Known as the Queen of the Dolomites, Cortina d'Ampezzo began to attract visitors from Germany and Britain as early as the late 19th century but it was thanks to the 1956 Winter Olympics that Cortina d'Ampezzo took off as a favourite destination for winter holidays. It became popular with the rich and famous, with Sophia Loren, Clark Gable, David Niven, Ingrid Bergman, Brigitte Bardot, Liz Taylor and Richard Burton and Alberto Sordi among the celebrity regulars. During the winter months, the population soars from 6,000 to 50,000. The 50th anniversary of the 1956 Games was celebrated this year with a two-day festival called Cortinissima 56.

The military monument on the summit of Monte Grappa
(Photo: Nikmilano CC BY-SA 3.0)

Travel tip:

Crespano del Grappa is a small town situated in the shadow of Monte Grappa, part of what is known as the pre-Alps, to the north of the Venetian plain, rising to 1,175 metres above sea level.  Monte Grappa was the setting for decisive battles during World War One and is now the site of a vast military cemetery, Cimo Grappa.  At the highest point is a monument, opened in 1935, in which are housed the remains of some 12,615 soldiers, with as many as 10,332 unknown.  The monument is composed of five concentric rings positioned one above the other so as to form a pyramid. At the top is the Sanctuary of the Madonna del Grappa.

Home

Roberto Calvi – banker

Mystery remains over bizarre death of bank chairman

God's Banker: Roberto Calvi

Roberto Calvi, dubbed God’s Banker by the Press because of his close association with the Vatican, was born on this day in 1920 in Milan.

In 1982 his body was found hanging from scaffolding beneath Blackfriars Bridge close to London’s financial district. His death is a mystery that has never been satisfactorily solved and it has been made the subject of many books and films.

Calvi was the chairman of Banco Ambrosiano in Milan, which had direct links to Pope John Paul II through his bodyguard, Archbishop Paul Marcinkus, who was also was head of the Vatican Bank, which had shares in Ambrosiano.

Calvi had been missing for nine days before his body was found by a passer-by in London. At first police treated his death as suicide but a year later a second inquest overturned this and delivered an open verdict.

In October 2002, forensic experts commissioned by an Italian court finally concluded Calvi had been murdered.

Calvi had become chairman of Ambrosiano, Italy’s largest private bank, in 1975 and had built up a vast financial empire.

But three years later the Bank of Italy issued a report claiming Ambrosiano had illegally exported several million lire.

Calvi was arrested, found guilty and sentenced to four years' imprisonment but was then released pending an appeal.

During his short time in prison he had attempted suicide. But he disappeared after his release before he could appear in court to appeal against his conviction.

He was also due to be tried on charges of fraud involving property deals with a Sicilian banker, who was at the time in prison in America following the collapse of a bank in New York.

Calvi is known to have fled to Venice and hired a private plane to take him to London but nothing is known about the time he spent in the city.

Blackfriars Bridge in London, where Calvi's body was found
(Photo: Peter Trimming CC BY-SA  3.0)

The day before his body was found hanging under the bridge, his secretary had jumped off the fourth floor of Ambrosiano’s headquarters in Milan.

When Calvi was found he had bricks in his pockets and in the fly of his trousers, but forensic tests later revealed that his hands had never touched them. He was also carrying large sums of money in different currencies, which seemed to rule out robbery as a motive.

The tests also concluded that the injuries to Calvi’s neck were inconsistent with hanging and it was revealed that at the time of his death the level of the river had been high enough for someone to have tied his body to the bridge while standing up in a boat below it. There was no evidence from Calvi’s hands or feet that he had climbed over the parapet and fixed the rope himself.

Five people were tried for Calvi’s murder in Rome in 2005 but after proceedings lasting almost two years they were all acquitted, the judge citing "insufficient evidence." Marcinkus was granted immunity from questioning as a Vatican employee and has since retired and died.

Calvi’s death remains a mystery but claims have been made about it at various times in books and newspapers that involve the Vatican Bank, the Mafia, and Propaganda Due (P2), a clandestine Masonic Lodge, of which Calvi was a member.

P2 members sometimes referred to themselves as frati neri, black friars, which led to suggestions Calvi might have been murdered and left hanging below that particular bridge as some kind of Masonic warning.

Palazzo Mezzanotte, home to the Milan Stock Exchange
(Photo: Goldmund 100 CC BY-SA 3.0)

Travel tip:

Milan is the main industrial, commercial and financial centre of Italy. The business district is home to the Borsa Italiana (stock exchange) and the headquarters of the main national banks. The Borsa is located in Palazzo Mezzanotte in Piazza Affari (Business Square). 

Travel tip:

The Vatican Bank in Vatican City is also known as the Institute for the Works of Religion and was founded by Pope Pius XII in 1942. In June 2013, Pope Francis appointed a commission to review the Institute’s activities and in October of the same year the first ever annual report was published and made available for download from the Institute’s new website, www.ior.va.

Home

Marcello Lippi - World Cup winning coach

Former Juventus manager ready to come out of retirement

Marcello Lippi

Marcello Lippi, one of Italy's most successful football managers and a World Cup winner in 2006, celebrates his 68th birthday today but says he feels ready to reverse his decision to retire and return to the bench.

Lippi, who as Juventus coach won five Serie A titles and the Champions League before taking the reins of the national team, subsequently had a successful career in China, where his Guangzhou Evergrande team won three Chinese Super League championships and the Asian Champions League.

He is the only manager to have won both the European Champions League and the Asian Champions League.

After winning his third league title with Guangzhou in November 2015 he announced his retirement, claiming he was too old to continue coaching.  He stayed at the club as director of football but resigned from that position the following February.

He has not worked since but, after suggestions that AC Milan might part company with Serbian coach Sinisa Mihajlovic after a poor season in Serie A and turn to Lippi as a replacement, he said in January this year that he missed football and would be willing to return.  Mihajlovic has since been dismissed, with youth coach Christian Brocchi taking the reins for the remainder of this season.

Lippi was born on this day in 1948 in Viareggio on the Tuscan coast, where he still lives. He spent much of his playing career in Genoa with Sampdoria, where he played as a central defender or sweeper.

He began his coaching career at the same club in 1982, looking after the youth team, before taking on his first senior team at Pontedera, a small club in Tuscany playing in the third tier.  It is in the Italian tradition for coaches to gain a grounding in the lower divisions and Lippi did not experience Serie A until Cesena became his fifth club in 1989.

Gianluca Vialli lifts the European Cup after
the 1996 Champions League final in Rome

His breakthrough came in 1994 when he achieved UEFA Cup qualification with Napoli, a club at that time in financial turmoil. That achievement attracted interest from other clubs and when Juventus decided to hire him for the following season it heralded the start of a highly successful period in the history of Italy's most famous club.

Lippi won the Serie A-Coppa Italia double in his first season, 1994-95, in which the Turin-based team also reached the final of the UEFA Cup and won the pre-season Supercoppa Italia, contested by the Serie A champions and Coppa Italia winners from the previous year.

In his second season, Juventus won the Champions League, beating holders Ajax on penalties in the final to win Europe's major prize for the first time since 1985.  Runners-up in Serie A that year, the bianconeri reclaimed the title in 1997 and defended it successfully in 1998, finishing Champions League runners-up in both of those seasons.

Juventus's star-studded team during those years included Gianluca Vialli, Fabrizio Ravanelli, Didier Deschamps, Ciro Ferrara, Antonio Conte, Zinedine Zidane, Christian Vieri and Alen Boksic.

After a brief but unsuccessful stint as coach at Internazionale, Lippi returned to Turin for a second spell in charge and won two more Serie A titles.  A new line-up that included Alessandro del Piero and goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon also reached the Champions League final in 2003, losing to AC Milan on penalties in the final at Old Trafford, Manchester.

Watch: Alessandro del Piero scores against Germany in the 2006 World Cup semi-final

In all he won five Serie A titles, four Supercoppa Italias, one Coppa Italia and the Champions League with Juventus, as well as the European Supercup and the Intercontinental Cup.

But he topped all that after he was appointed Italy coach in 2004. Despite being under scrutiny when Juventus were implicated in a corruption scandal, he led Italy to unexpected World Cup success in Germany in 2006, when they defeated the hosts in a classic semi-final before beating France on penalties in the final.

This made Lippi the first coach to have won both the Champions League and the World Cup, a feat later matched by Spain's Vicente del Bosque in 2010.  Lippi stood down as coach within days of his triumph and although he returned for a second spell in charge before the 2010 World Cup, a poor showing in the finals in South Africa led him to resign.

After his success in China, it seemed Lippi would be content to return to Viareggio, take to his boat and indulge his passion for sea fishing.

"I am in love with the sea in every aspect," he once said in an interview for a British newspaper. "I like it when it is windy, when it is mild, in summer, in winter. I feel very well when I am near the sea."

"But," he added, "it would not be a problem to work in a town where there is no sea."  Milan, perhaps?

A giant-sized likeness of Marcello Lippi himself  figured
in the Viareggio Carnival after Italy's World Cup triumph
(Photo: Wiki Lupetto CC BY-SA 3.0)

Travel tip: 

Viareggio is a popular resort with excellent sandy beaches well known for its carnival, a month-long event dating back to 1873 that runs from February through to March and features parades of giant papier-mache floats designed to represent well-known public figures. The Tuscan resort is also notable for its beautiful Liberty-style architecture, much of it built in its heydey in the late 19th and early 20th century, many examples of which thankfully survived heavy bombing in World War Two when the town was a target because of its shipbuilding industry.

Travel tip:

Juventus play at the Juventus Stadium, an ultra-modern ground with a 41,000 capacity that has been their home since 2011. It is situated in a suburb in the northern part of the city, some seven kilometres from the centre, close to the Venaria exit on the city's Tangenziale ring road.  The stadium is best reached by number 72 and 72b bus from the city.  The stadium houses the Juventus museum, which highlights the history of the club, and there are guided tours of the stadium that include access to the dressing rooms, players’ tunnel and media areas on Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays.  For more information, visit www.juventus.com

More reading:

Azeglio Vicini and the heartbreak of Italia '90

Dino Zoff - record-breaking goalkeeper who became Italy boss

Arrigo Sacchi - the coach who revolutionised football in Italy

Home

Primo Levi - Auschwitz survivor

Celebrated writer killed in fall in Turin

Primo Levi: a photograph taken
in about 1950

Primo Levi, an Auschwitz survivor who wrote a number of books chronicling his experiences of the Holocaust, died on this day in Turin in 1987.  He was 67 years old and his body was found at the foot of a stairwell in the apartment building where he lived, having seemingly fallen from the third floor.

A chemist by profession, Levi died in the same building in which he was born in July 1919, in Corso Re Umberto in the Crocetta district of the northern Italian city.  Apart from his periods of incarceration, he lived in the same apartment, a gift from his father to his mother, almost all his life.

His death was officially recorded as suicide, the verdict supported by his son's statement that his father had suffered from depression in the months leading to his death.  He had undergone surgery for a prostate condition and was worried about the failing health of his 92-year-old mother.

Some of his friends, however, doubted that he would have taken his own life and believed he had fallen accidentally.  They argued that while other survivors never recovered from the mental scarring, Levi had emerged with "soul and psyche intact" and retained a hopeful and positive outlook.

Many of Levi's books were autobiographical and drew upon the atrocities he witnessed in the notorious concentration camp, where he was spared death because his chemistry skills were useful to the Nazis. His first book, If This Is a Man, which described daily life in the death camps in harrowing detail, was published in 1947.

Sometimes known by another title, Survival in Auschwitz,  If This Is a Man was the first volume of an autobiographical trilogy which was followed 16 years later by The Truce and 12 years after that by The Periodic Table.

The latter was hailed as his greatest work, an account of his life from his childhood to his postwar employment as an industrial chemist, each story bearing the name of a chemical element to which he felt each episode was symbolically connected.

Primo Levi was a descendant of Jews who had settled in Piedmont after being expelled from Spain. He studied chemistry at the University of Turin, managing to remain there despite the Mussolini regime imposing a ban on Jews from institutes of higher education and graduated in 1941.

He found work in Turin by giving a false identity but as the city became more dangerous he left to Milan, where he was taken on by a Swiss-run pharmaceutical laboratory that was not subject to the new race laws, returning to Turin after Mussolini was deposed by King Umberto III in 1943.

A view of the Crocetta district, where Levi lived almost all
 his life in the same apartment. (Photo: Gianpiero Actis)

His father was by now dead and he found his mother and sister had fled to the family's holiday home in the mountains.  After Mussolini, imprisoned by the King, was freed by the German forces occupying northern and central Italy, Levi joined Italian Partisans fighting German and Italian Fascist forces.

Betrayed by a Fascist informer, he was soon captured, after which he was sent initially to an Italian prison camp near Modena and then shipped by train with hundreds of other Jews to Auschwitz.

Levi was given a job in a synthetic rubber factory at the Auschwitz complex.  He was liberated by the Russian Red Army in January 1945, fate having probably saved his life a second time.  Shortly before Russian troops arrived, the Germans had attempted to march the Auschwitz inmates to another location and many of them died en route. Levi was stricken with scarlet fever, however, and left behind.

It took him almost nine months to get back to Turin.  He met his wife, Lucia - with whom he would have a son and a daughter - at a Jewish New Year party in 1946 and eventually settled into a job at a paint factory outside Turin.  At first, the limited train service meant he had to stay in a dormitory at the factory during the week, returning to Corso Re Umberto only at weekends, but the time gave him the opportunity to write.

At the time of his death, the novelist Philip Roth said of Levi:

''With the moral stamina and intellectual poise of a 20th-century titan, this slightly built, dutiful, unassuming chemist set out systematically to remember the German hell on earth, steadfastly to think it through, and then to render it comprehensible in lucid, unpretentious prose. He was profoundly in touch with the minutest workings of the most endearing human events and with the most contemptible.''

Travel tip: 

The paint factory in Settimo Torinese where Levi worked from 1947 to 1975 was abandoned in the 1990s but reopened in 2014 as a museum and cultural center for Holocaust memory.  It includes an exhibition prepared by the Holocaust Memorial Museum at Auschwitz and an exhibit on Levi’s life located in the office he used when he worked as the plant manager.

A typical house in the Crocetta district

Travel tip:

The Crocetta district of Turin, through which Corso Re Umberto runs from north to south as one of the main thoroughfares,  is located just to the south of the historic city centre and is considered one of the most prestigious residential areas in the city.  It is famous for a large outdoor market that is held every day and is notable for many good restaurants.

More reading:

Mussolini and the founding of the Italian Fascists

How Alcide de Gasperi rebuilt postwar Italy

Home

From Rome to the North Pole

Aeronautical history launched from Ciampino airport

Umberto Nobile

On this day in 1926, an airship took off from Ciampino airport in Rome on the first leg of what would be an historic journey culminating in the first flight over the North Pole.

The expedition was the brainchild of the Norwegian polar explorer and expedition leader Roald Amundsen, but the pilot was the airship's designer, aeronautical engineer Umberto Nobile, who had an Italian crew.

They were joined in the project by millionaire American explorer Lincoln Ellsworth who, along with the Aero Club of Norway, financed the trip which was known as the Amundsen-Ellsworth 1926 Transpolar Flight.

Nobile - born in Lauro, near Avellino in Campania - designed the 160metres long craft on behalf of the Italian State Airship factory, who sold it to Ellsworth for $75,000.  Amundsen named the airship Norge, which means Norway in his native tongue.

The first leg of the flight north was due to have left Rome on 6 April but was delayed due to strong winds until the 10th.  The first stop-off point was at the Pulham Airship Station in England, from where it took off again for Oslo on 12 April. Three days later Nobile, Amundsen, Ellsworth and the crew flew on to Gatchina, near Leningrad, the journey taking 17 hours because of dense fog.

The movement of airships depended on the construction of sheds and mooring masts and delays in erecting masts, plus further bad weather, put back the team's departure from Gatchina to Kings Bay, Spitsbergen, which would be the final stop before the attempt to fly over the Pole.

In the meantime, a rival expedition led by the American explorer Richard E Byrd arrived.  His three-engined Fokker aeroplane took off from Spitsbergen on 9 May and returned 16 hours later, Byrd and co-pilot Floyd Bennett claiming to have overflown the Pole.

Umberto Nobile's airship Norge

Amundsen is said to have congratulated Byrd on beating him to the honour of being first but he and his colleagues decided to press on with their flight anyway, crossing the Pole on 11 May and going on to land in Alaska.  It was just as well they did.  Some years later, suspicions raised by the navigational data in Byrd's flight diary led to an admission from Bennett that their claim was fraudulent.

After a dispute with Amundsen over who should take the most credit for the mission's success, Nobile mounted a polar expedition of his own two years later but this one ended in disaster when his Italia airship, having successfully overflown the Pole, crashed into the ice on the way back to Kings Bay. Eight members of the 17-man crew were lost, two confirmed dead and six others presumed to have died, trapped on board the stricken Italia as it was swept away in high winds.

In a further tragic twist, Amundsen was killed during the rescue mission, having put aside his differences with Nobile to board a seaplane bound for Spitsbergen, only for the aircraft to crash en route.

Nobile eventually returned to Rome to a hero's welcome but an official enquiry accused him of abandoning his crew after the crash. He resigned from the Italian Air Force, in which he has risen to the rank of Major General. It took him 17 years to clear his name.

Having lived in the Soviet Union and then the United States, where he taught aeronautics at a university in Illinois, Nobile went back to Italy in 1942 and ultimately returned to the University of Naples, where he had been a student, to teach and write.  After the war, he ran for parliament as a member of the Italian Communist Party.

Nobile died in Rome on 30 July 1978 aged 93 after having celebrated the 50th anniversary of his two polar expeditions.

Travel tip:

Visitors to Rome can see a permanent exhibition celebrating Nobile's achievements at the Italian Air Force Museum at Vigna di Valle, about 45 kilometres north-west of the capital on the shores of Lago di Bracciano, where it occupies what used to be a seaplane station on the lake.  The museum is open every day except Mondays from 9am to 5.30pm in the summer months, 9am to 4.30pm in the winter.

The cathedral at Avellino
(Photo: Daniel Junger CC BY-SA 3.0)

Travel tip:

Avellino, which is situated about 42 kilometres north-east of Naples on a plain surrounded by mountains, has suffered more than its fair share of damage from earthquakes throughout its history and was also bombed during World War Two.  Avellino's cathedral, built in 1580, sits on the site of a Roman villa dating back to 129BC.  The Fountain of Bellerophon, built in the 17th century, is worth a look.

Home

Patty Pravo - pop singer of enduring fame

Venetian artist's career has spanned 50 years

Patty Pravo depicted in a magazine publicity
photograph from around 1970

The pop singer Patty Pravo celebrates her 68th birthday today, almost 50 years since she took her first steps on the road to fame with the release of her first single, Ragazzo Triste.

Pravo has recorded 27 albums and 52 singles, selling more than 110 million records, making her the third biggest selling Italian artist of all time.  Her latest album, Eccomi, was released in February of this year following her ninth appearance at the Sanremo Music Festival and she is currently on tour, taking a day off in between appearances in Bari last night and Rome tomorrow.

Born Nicoletta Strambelli on April 9, 1948 in Venice, she grew up in an intellectual environment. Family friends included Cardinal Angelo Roncalli - the future Pope John XXIII - the actor Cesco Baseggio, the soprano Toti dal Monte and the American poet Ezra Pound, who lived in Venice and would take the young Nicoletta for walks and buy her ice cream.  She would spend time too at the house of Peggy Guggenheim, the American socialite and art collector.

Her parents enrolled her to study music at the Conservatory Institute of Benedetto Marcello from the age of 10 but by the time she was 16 she had left Venice for London, lured by what she had heard about the rapidly evolving pop culture.  It was there that she learned about a similarly exciting scene taking hold in Rome, and in particular about a nightclub called Piper, which was where she was to make her name.

Initially taken on by the Piper as a dancer, she was asked by the club's owner, Alberigo Crocetta, if she could also sing and legend has it that he needed only to hear her voice once to recognise her potential.  He introduced her to RCA records, for whom in 1966 she recorded Ragazzo Triste, an Italian cover of the Sonny and Cher song But You're Mine. It was an immediate success and was even played on Vatican Radio, who had never previously aired a pop song.

Now performing under her stage name - she chose Patty because it was a popular American first name and Pravo because it meant 'wicked' - the next two decades were enormously successful.  Her long blond hair and natural beauty gave her a photogenic appeal and she became the feminine symbol of the Italian beat scene.

The cover of Patty Pravo's latest album, Eccomi

She had her first major hit in 1968 with La Bambola, which topped the charts in Italy and five other countries.  It sold nine million copies within a short time of its release and within Italy has acquired a nostalgic resonance that has given it a lasting appeal, featuring in the soundtracks of many films and TV series set in the Italy of the late 60s and 70s. To date its sales exceed 30 million copies.

Pravo changed her musical direction somewhat in the 70s, reportedly feeling trapped by her image as "la ragazza del Piper" - the girl from the Piper club - but struck gold again with the song Pazza idea, which gave her a second Italian number one single.

The 80s and early 90s were less successful.  Her popularity at home declined when she moved to America, especially after she took the decision to pose nude for Playboy magazine, and on her return to Italy she was enveloped in a number of scandals.  She was accused of plagiarism over a song she performed at Sanremo in 1987 and in 1992 was arrested on suspicion of possessing hashish.

But she made a triumphant return to Sanremo in 1997 when her song ...e dimmi che non vuoi morire (...and Tell Me You Don't Want to Die) won the acclaim of the critics and peaked at number two in the Italian charts.

In a recent interview, she insisted she has no plans to retire.  "As long as my health is right, I don't really care how old I am," she said.

Travel tip:

The Piper Club is often described as Rome's equivalent of Studio 54 in New York, a venue that during its peak years was unrivalled as the place to go for those who wanted to be seen and photographed. Located in Via Tagliamento in the Trieste district, an area popular with students and young professionals, it is still in business today and is popular for themed party nights on Fridays with a resident DJ in action on Saturdays.

The Peggy Guggenheim Collection is located in a museum
on the Grand Canal in Venice (Photo: G Lanting CC BY 3.0)

Travel tip:

Peggy Guggenheim died in 1979 but her legacy to Venice remains in the collection of modern art she accumulated, much of which is on display at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, a museum located on the Grand Canal in the Dorsoduro district, which is open to the public from 10am to 6pm.

More reading:

Ligabue - record-breaking rock star

Little Tony - 60s pop star inspired by Little Richard

How bass guitarist Pino Presti became one of the most important figures in the Italian music business

Also on this day:

1454: The Treaty of Lodi ends fighting in northern Italy

1933: The birth of the great character actor Gian Maria Volonté


Home

Gaetano Donizetti - operatic genius

The day the music died

Joseph Kriehuber's 1842 portrait of
Gaetano Donizetti

A prolific composer of operas in the first half of the 19th century, Gaetano Donizetti died on this day in 1848 in Bergamo in Lombardy.

Donizetti had returned to his native city after a brilliant international career to spend his last days in the Palazzo Scotti in the Città Alta, the upper town.

By then seriously ill, he was looked after by friends in the gracious surroundings of the palazzo until his death. His tomb is in the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore, where it is marked by a white, marble monument.

Donizetti has since become acknowledged as the greatest composer of lyrical opera of all time. He was a major influence on Giuseppe Verdi, Giacomo Puccini and other composers who came after him.

Along with Gioachino Rossini and Vincenzo Bellini, he was a leading composer of the bel canto opera style during the first half of the 19th century. Among more than 70 works, his best and most famous operas are considered to be Lucia di Lammermoor, Don Pasquale and L’elisir d’amore.

In Via Sentierone in Bergamo’s lower town there is an elaborate white marble monument to the composer next to Teatro Donizetti, which was renamed in his honour in 1897 on the centenary of his birth.

Donizetti painted as a schoolboy in
Bergamo in the early 19th century

Born in the Borgo Canale quarter of Bergamo, just outside the city walls, the youngest of three sons of the caretaker of a municipal pawnshop, he trained with the German composer Simon Mayr, the maestro di cappella at the city's cathedral. Mayr helped him win a place at the Bologna Academy at the age of 19.  He was not the most assiduous student, gaining a reputation for missing classes and getting into scrapes, but Mayr's faith in his talent did not waver and ultimately it was rewarded.

His first important success came in 1818 with Enrico di Borgogna at the Teatro San Luca, in Venice. Soon afterwards he moved to Naples, taking up residency at the Teatro San Carlo in 1822 at the age of 25. He stayed there until 1844, producing more than three quarters of his work there.  In 1830 his Anna Bolena, produced at Teatro alla Scala in Milan, carried his fame abroad and two years later came L’elisir d’amore. The year after that Lucrezia Borgia consolidated his reputation in Milan.

However, more than once he found himself at odds with the censors, and in the 1840s began to spend an increasing amount of time in Paris, where the censorship rules were less strict.

Married in 1828 to Virginia Vasseli, the sister of one of his closest friends in Rome, Donizetti's spirits suffered greatly after her death in 1837, soon after the stillbirth of a son. Indeed, none of their three children survived birth.

His own health began to decline soon after he moved to Paris and it was not only physically but mentally that he deteriorated rapidly, suffering periods of near-insanity due to the loss of his cognitive faculties. It was only because of the devotion of a nephew, Andrea, that he was able to return to Bergamo for his final days.

Donizetti's birthplace in Via Borgo Canale
is clearly marked at No 14

Travel tip:

Donizetti’s Casa Natale (birthplace), is in Via Borgo Canale just outside the walls of the upper town. It has now been declared a national monument and is open free to visitors every weekend. You can still see the well from which the family drew their water and the fireplace where meals were cooked, which would also have been their only source of heating.  To reach Donizetti’s birthplace, leave the Città Alta through Porta Sant’Alessandro and go past the station for the San Vigilio funicolare. Via Borgo Canale is the next street on the right and Casa Natale, at number 14, is in the middle of a row of characteristic, tall houses and is marked by a plaque.

Bergamo hotels by Booking.com

The bed in which Donizetti spent his final hours in Palazzo
Scotti is on display in the museum in Via Arena

Travel tip:

A museum dedicated to Donizetti’s life and career is housed in the former Palazzo Misericordia Maggiore, now a musical institute, in Via Arena in the Città Alta. There are many interesting letters, documents and original scores on display along with the bed he died in and the chair he sat in while staying in Palazzo Scotti towards the end of his life. Donizetti’s tomb can be seen in the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore in Piazza Duomo in the Città Alta.

Also on this day:

1492: The death of Lorenzo the Magnificent 

1868: The birth of equestrian pioneer Federico Caprilli

1929: The birth of controversial historian Renzo De Felice

Home