Alessandro Scarlatti - composer

Prolific opera composer was ahead of his time

Baroque composer Alessandro Scarlatti was born on this day in 1660 in Palermo.

Alessandro Scarlatti

He is considered to be the founder of the Neapolitan School of opera, from which modern opera developed, and his two sons, Domenico and Pietro Filippo, also went on to become composers.

Scarlatti is believed to have been a pupil of Giacomo Carissimi in Rome. When his opera Gli equivoci nel sembiante was produced in the city he gained the support of Queen Christina of Sweden, an enthusiastic patron of the arts who had taken up residence there. He became her maestro di cappella and joined the Arcadian Academy she had founded.

Along with composers Bernardo Pasquini and Arcangelo Corelli, he regularly visited her home to perform music he had dedicated to her.

In 1684 Scarlatti became maestro di cappella to the royal family in Naples and produced a series of operas and music for state occasions for them.

Scarlatti also enjoyed the patronage of Ferdinando de' Medici and composed operas for his private theatre near Florence. He was also maestro di cappella for Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni who procured him a post at the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome.

It was in Rome that Scarlatti produced some of his best operas and church music but he eventually retired to live in Naples where he died in 1725.

Scarlatti’s music formed an important link between the early Italian Baroque vocal style of the 17th century and the classical school of the 18th century and anticipated the work of later composers such as Mozart and Schubert.

Il Mitridate Eupatore, composed for production during the Carnival in Venice in 1707, is thought to be his masterpiece. He also wrote hundreds of chamber cantatas for a solo voice.

The Palazzo Farnese is now the home of the French
Embassy in Campo De' Fiori in Rome

Travel tip:

Palazzo Farnese, where Scarlatti was a guest of Queen Christina of Sweden at gatherings of the Arcadian Academy, is in Piazza Farnese in the Campo De’ Fiori area of Rome. It is now being used as the French Embassy. Queen Christina was given permission to lodge in this important Renaissance building by Pope Alexander VII because when she first came to live in Rome it was standing empty, following the death of Cardinal Odoardo Farnese.


Travel tip:

Palermo, where Alessandro Scarlatti was born, is the capital of Sicily. It is famous for its history, culture, architecture, food and wine. It has examples of Romanesque, Gothic and Baroque churches and palaces. Palazzo dei Normanni, a marvellous example of Norman architecture, is the seat of the Sicilian Regional Assembly. The Teatro Massimo, the biggest theatre in Italy, has staged operas starring Enrico Caruso.


More reading:

Why Arcangelo Corelli was a major influence on the development of music

Bernardo Pasquini's life as opera composer to a queen

Giovanni Borelli, the 17th century Neapolitan physiologist who was first to explain movement

Also on this day: 

1913: The birth of Maserati designer Pietro Frua

1930: The birth of radical politician and campaigner Marco Pannella


(Photo of Palazzo Farnese by Myrabella CC BY-SA 3.0)

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Giovanni Guareschi – writer

Satirical magazine editor first used Don Camillo to fill a gap

Giovanni Guareschi created the character of
Don Camillo for the satirical magazine he ran

Author Giovanni Guareschi, the creator of the fictional character, Don Camillo, was born on this day in 1908 in Roccabianca in Emilia-Romagna.

The popular stories featuring his famous comic creations, the stalwart Italian priest, Don Camillo, and the Communist mayor, Peppone, have since been made into many radio and television programmes and films.

Guareschi, who was christened Giovannino, started his career writing for the Gazzetta di Parma and then became a magazine editor.

He was called up to serve in the army in 1943 but was quickly taken prisoner, along with other Italian soldiers, by the Germans. He wrote a secret diary while he was in the prison camp, Diario Clandestino.

After the war Guareschi founded a weekly satirical magazine, Candido, where his Don Camillo stories first appeared. He had written the introductory story for another publication but lifted it to fill a gap in Candido at the last minute.

His magazine criticised and satirised the Communists but after they were beaten in the 1948 elections he turned his attentions to the Christian Democrats instead.

The magazine published a satirical cartoon poking fun at the president, Luigi Einaudi, which was judged by a court to be 'contempt of the president' and after Guareschi had subsequently been charged with libelling a former prime minister, Alcide de Gasperi, he was sent to prison.

When Guareschi was released, his health started to deteriorate and he had to spend time in Switzerland recuperating. He retired from editing Candido, although he remained a contributor until he died in 1968 after a heart attack.

The Castello di Roccabianca, built in 1450

Travel tip:

Roccabianca, where Guareschi was born, is a comune to the northwest of Parma, which takes its name from the castle (rocca) built there in the 1450s by Pier Maria Rossi, which has been restored and is now open to the public.


Travel tip:

Guareschi is buried in the graveyard of the church of San Michele in Le Roncole, the village near Bussetto in Emilia-Romagna where the composer Giuseppe Verdi was born.

(Photo of the Castello di Roccabianca by Antonio Pedroni CC BY-SA 2.0)

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Pope Pius V - Saint

Pontiff dismissed jester and clamped down on heretics

Saint Pius V: a painting by El Greco

The feast day of Saint Pius V is celebrated every year on this day, the day before the anniversary of his death in 1572 in Rome.

Saint Pius V, who became Pope in 1566, is remembered chiefly for his role in the Counter Reformation, the period of Catholic resurgence following the Protestant Reformation.

He excommunicated Queen Elizabeth I of England for heresy and for persecuting English Catholics and he formed the Holy League, an alliance of Catholic states against the Turks.

Saint Pius V was born Antonio Ghislieri in Bosco, now Bosco Marengo, in Piedmont. At the age of 14 he entered the Dominican Order, taking the name of Michele. He was ordained at Genoa in 1528 and then sent to Pavia to lecture. 

He became a bishop under Pope Pius IV but after opposing the pontiff was dismissed. After the death of Pius IV, Ghislieri was elected Pope Pius V in 1566. His first act on becoming Pope was to dismiss the court jester and no Pope has had one since.

Protestantism had by then conquered many parts of Europe and Pius V was determined to prevent it getting into Italy. He therefore took a personal interest in the activities of the Inquisition in Rome and appeared to be unmoved by the cruelty practiced.

After his death in 1572, Pius V was buried in the Vatican despite having asked to be buried in Bosco.

He was canonised by Pope Clement XI in 1712.  Cardinal John Henry Newman later explained his severity as necessary for the time. He wrote about Pius V: “He was a soldier of Christ in a time of insurrection and rebellion, when in a spiritual sense, martial law was proclaimed.”

The parish church in Bosco Marengo with a monument
to Pope Saint Pius V in the foreground

Travel tip:

Bosco Marengo is a town in the province of Alessandria in Piedmont, southeast of Turin and Alessandria. The 16th century church of Santa Croce in the town was commissioned by Pope Pius V in the year of his election to the papacy to house his tomb and it now contains a marble monument to the pope.

Travel tip:

In 1698 the body of Pope Pius V was transferred to a tomb in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Piazza del Esquilino in Rome, not far from the Termini railway station. The front of the tomb has a bronze lid engraved with a likeness of the Pope which was designed to be lifted down to allow pilgrims to view the saint’s remains.

(Photo of church in Bosco Marengo by Davide Papalini CC BY-SA 3.0)

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Sara Errani -- tennis champion

Five-times Grand Slam doubles winner reached No 5 in singles

Sara Errani is arguably Italy's most
successful tennis player

Tennis star Sara Errani, who was born in Bologna on this day in 1987, celebrates her 29th birthday as arguably the most successful Italian tennis player of all time.

She and partner Roberta Vinci's career record of five Grand Slam doubles titles is unparalleled.  No other Italian combination has won more than one Grand Slam title and no Italian singles player has won more than two.

Nicola Pietrangeli, who was ranked the No 3 men's singles player at his peak, won the French Open championship in 1959 and 1960 and was runner-up in Paris on two other occasions, as well as winning the men's doubles at the French in 1959, with fellow Italian Orlando Sirola.

But Errani and Vinci have won on all surfaces, achieving a career Grand Slam in 2014 when they triumphed in the women's doubles at Wimbledon, having already won the French and US titles in 2012 and the Australian in both 2013 and 2014.  They are only the fifth pairing in tennis history to complete a career Grand Slam.

Errani also achieved a world ranking of No 5 in singles in 2013, having been runner-up to Maria Sharapova in the 2012 French Open as well as winning five WTA singles titles in the space of 12 months.

Among Italian women players, only Francesca Schiavone has achieved a higher singles ranking, reaching No 4 after winning the 2010 French Open.

Errani and Vinci, who also won five WTA doubles titles, have since ended their partnership, Errani deciding to focus on singles, having dropped out of the top 10 in 2014.  In February this year she won her ninth career singles title, defeating the Czech player Barbora Strycova 6-0, 6-2 in the final of the Dubai Championships.

Sara Errani and Roberta Vinci won five Grand Slam titles

As a young girl, Errani showed talent in several sports, including swimming, football and athletics. But after she was picked to represent Italy in a tennis tournament in France at the age of just 12, her parents, fruit and vegetable trader Giorgio and pharmacist Fulvia, found the money to send her to the renowned Nick Bolletieri Academy in Florida.

She was the youngest ever to stay at the facility without her parents and, unable to speak any English, admitted she was so lonely she cried every day.  Yet, knowing the sacrifice her family had made, she stayed for 10 months.

On returning to Italy, she showed the benefit of Bolletieri's tuition and was Italy's No 1 at 18 years and under before she turned 16. Yet her talent was undervalued at home and it was only after moving to Spain that she was given the support necessary to fulfil her potential.

She won her first WTA tournament in Palermo in July 2008, picking up a second two weeks later in Slovenia, after which she pointedly dedicated her success to "all the Italians who never believed in me as a tennis player and said I would never go anywhere."

Though born in Bologna, Errani grew up in Massa Lombarda, in the province of Ravenna, where she still lives.

Travel tip:

Bologna has a reputation as the gastronomic capital of Italy, the city that invented tortellini and mortadella and gave the world the meat sauce (ragù) known as bolognese, which is authentically served with tagliatelle rather than spaghetti.  The best shops to buy fresh food in Bologna can be found in the Quadrilatero, an area adjoining Piazza Maggiore, bordered to the north by Via Francesco Rizzoli, to the south by Via Luigi Carlo Farini and to the east by Via Castiglione. It has a market that has occupied the same location since Medieval times.

Bologna hotels from Expedia.co.uk

The interior of the Basilica di San
Vitale is notable for beautiful mosaics

Travel tip:

No visit to Ravenna would be complete without taking in the stunning art of the octagonal Basilica di San Vitale, which dates back to the sixth century and contains some of the finest examples of Byzantine mosaics in the world, particularly those decorating the ceilings of the choir and apse. There are more mosaics in the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, across the courtyard from the Basilica.

More reading:

How Roberta Vinci reached a US Open singles final

Francesca Schiavone - the first Italian woman to win a Grand Slam tournament

The rise to number one of Camila Giorgi

Also on this day:

1675: The birth of painter Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini

1945: Brazilian troops liberate town of Fornovo di Taro


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The death of Benito Mussolini

Fascist dictator captured and killed on shores of Lake Como

A small cross bearing Mussolini's name marks the spot in
Giulino di Mezzegra where his execution was carried out

Benito Mussolini, the dictator who ruled Italy for 21 years until he was deposed in 1943, was killed by Italian partisans on this day in 1945, at the village of Giulino di Mezzegra on the shore of Lake Como.

The 61-year-old leader of the National Fascist Party had been captured the previous day in the town of Dongo, further up the lake, as he attempted to reach Switzerland along with his mistress, Claretta Petacci, and a number of Fascist officials.  With Nazi Germany on the brink of defeat, Mussolini had been planning to board a plane in Switzerland in order to fly to Spain.

Mussolini was said to have donned a Luftwaffe helmet and overcoat in the hope that he would not be recognised but the disguise did not work.

Fearing that the Germans would try to free him, as they had two years earlier when Italy's King Victor Emmanuel III placed him under house arrest in mountainous Abruzzo, the partisans hid Mussolini and the others in a remote farmhouse.

The following morning, along the coast of the lake at Mezzegra, their captives were stood against a wall and shot dead. The executions were said to have been carried out by a partisan who went under the name of Colonnello Valerio.  A communist politician, Walter Audisio, later claimed he was Colonnello Valerio.

From Mezzegra the bodies were taken in a van to Milan, where they were dumped in what used to be called Piazzale Loreto, a square with symbolic significance.  Later renamed Piazza Quindici Martiri, it had been the place at which Fascist militia had displayed the bodies of 15 murdered Italian partisans a year earlier.

The bodies of Mussolini, his mistress and others were
hung upside down in a square in Milan

Famously, after being kicked, beaten and spat upon by a mob of angry Milanese citizens, the bodies of Mussolini, Petacci and others were hung upside down from the roof of an Esso petrol station.

American troops removed the bodies later in the day and they were transferred to the city mortuary. Mussolini's corpse was buried in an unmarked grave in a Milan cemetery only to be stolen by fanatics claiming allegiance to the Fascist cause.

Once the authorities recovered the body, its location was kept secret for more than a decade. Eventually, in 1957, prime minister Adone Zoli arranged for it to be returned to Mussolini's birthplace in Predappio, just outside Forlì in Emilia-Romagna, where it remains today, buried in the family crypt at a cemetery just outside the town.

Mussolini's attempted escape to Switzerland was his last desperate act. After he was liberated by the Germans in 1943, he had been placed in charge of an area of northern Italy that became known as the Republic of Salò, with its administrative base in the town on Lake Garda of that name. He decided to flee when it became clear that the Allied invasion of the Italian peninsula from the south would not be halted.

He had been told that the Germans were preparing to surrender. Indeed, two days after Mussolini was killed, Adolf Hitler committed suicide in his bunker in Berlin.

The town of Dongo is situated in a picturesque
location on the shore of Lake Como

Travel tip:

Dongo is one of many picturesque towns along the shore of Lake Como, with a number of hotels, restaurants and shops.  It is very popular during the summer months and also attracts walkers, who can explore nearby mountain villages on foot. Dongo has a small harbour adjoining the town's main square, where one can find the Palazzo Manzi, built in 1803 and now Dongo's town hall.  The ground floor houses the Museum of the End of the War, refurbished in 2014, dedicated to the partisans and in particular to the capture of Mussolini.

Travel tip:

Predappio, a modest rural town about 18 kilometres south of Forlì, has become a site of pilgrimage for neo-Fascists from Italy and other parts of Europe.  Although some residents would prefer not to be reminded of its association with such a dark period in Italian history, there are echoes of the Fascist era in a number of buildings constructed in characteristic style after a landslide in 1924, when the national government wanted Predappio to be celebrated as Il Duce's birthplace.  Tacky Fascist souvenirs are still sold in some shops despite previous moves to ban them.  In 2014, the local mayor announced plans for a museum dedicated to the history of Fascism, not to celebrate the Mussolini era but as a place of reflection.

More reading:

How the Italian Fascists were founded in Milan in 1919

Antonio Gramsci: communist intellectual locked up by Mussolini

Birth in Naples of Victor Emmanuel III

(Photo of Dongo by BKLuis CC BY-SA 3.0)
(Photo of cross in Mezzegra by Johnnyb11 CC BY-SA 3.0)


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Antonio Gramsci - left-wing intellectual

Communist leader Mussolini could not gag

Antonio Gramsci

Antonio Gramsci, one of the more remarkable intellectuals of left-wing Italian politics in the early 20th century, died on this day in 1937 in Rome, aged only 46.

A founding member and ultimately leader of the Italian Communist Party (PCI), he was arrested by Benito Mussolini's Fascist regime in November 1926 and sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment.   In failing health, he was granted his release after a campaign by friends and supporters but died without leaving the clinic in which he spent his final two years.

The conditions he encountered in jail led him to develop high blood pressure, angina, tuberculosis and acute gastric disorders.  Yet he found sufficient energy while imprisoned  to study the social and political history of Italy in extensive detail and to record his thoughts and theories in notebooks and around 500 letters to friends and supporters.

Many of his propositions heavily influenced the political strategy of communist parties in the West after the Second World War following the publication of his Prison Notebooks.

Gramsci was born in January 1891 in the small town of Ales, in a mountainous inland part of Sardinia about 70 kilometres north of Cagliari. His father, originally from Gaeta in Lazio, was a local government official who was himself imprisoned after being found guilty of embezzlement in 1898.

Despite his family falling into poverty without his father's income, Gramsci excelled at school, eventually winning a scholarship to the University of Turin, where he studied linguistics.  Turin was becoming industrialised at the time, with the Fiat and Lancia factories recruiting workers from poorer regions.  As trade unions became established, Gramsci became politically active, joining the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) in late 1913.

His health was already a concern.  His growth was stunted, apparently the result of being dropped as a child, and living on a poor diet in damp, unheated lodgings in Turin left him with respiratory problems.  Yet on leaving university he moved into journalism and pursued his career with vigour, becoming one of the most influential left-wing writers, hugely admired by those on his side of the political divide but regarded as a dangerous figure by those with leanings to the right.

Antonio Gramsci is buried in the
Protestant Cemetery in Rome

In 1921 he left the PSI to join the Communists and spent a year and a half living in Moscow, where he had travelled as a representative of his new party.  It was in Moscow that he met and married Julka Schucht, a violinist and member of the Russian Communist Party. They had two sons, Delio, who died in 1981, and Giuliano, who was born in 1926 and still lives in Moscow.

Meanwhile, the Fascist advance in Italy was gathering strength and Gramsci, outspoken in his opposition to Mussolini, returned to Italy with the intention of rallying the forces of the left in a united front.  In 1924, by then recognised as head of the PCI, he was elected to parliament as a deputy for the Veneto.

Mussolini's strategy with political opponents was to intimidate them and many members of the PCI were arrested.  Gramsci escaped at first through political immunity but after the Fascists introduced new laws in 1926 he also was arrested.

At his trial, the Fascist prosecutor's attitude to Gramsci was clear. "For twenty years we must stop this brain from functioning," he said.  It was somewhat ironic, then, that while Gramsci's mental faculties never faltered, it was his body that failed him.

He was moved from prison in Turi, near Bari, to a clinic in Rome in 1935. When the campaign for his freedom succeeded, his intention was to return to his native Sardinia.  He was due to be released on 21 April, 1937, but was too ill to make the journey and died a few days later from cerebral hemorrhage.

The striking Campus Luigi Einaudi was designed for the
University of Turin by Foster + Partners

Travel tip:

Although the University of Bologna predates it by more than 300 years, the University of Turin, founded in 1404, is one of the oldest universities in Europe.  Situated within walking distance of the centre of the city, the university's older buildings off Via Po date back to the 18th century. They contrast with the ultra-modern faculty of Law and Political Science at the Campus Luigi Einaudi on Lungo Dora Siena, designed by Foster + Partners, the firm headed by Lord Norman Foster.

Travel tip:

Cagliari, the capital of Sardinia, was Italy's Capital of Culture for 2015. The city contains fragments of a history spanning Carthaginian, Roman, Byzantine and Spanish eras.  The most popular sights include the Basilica of Our Lady of Bonaria and the Cathedral of Santa Maria.

(Picture of Gramsci's grave by Piero Montesacro CC BY-SA 3.0)

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Michele Ferrero - the man who invented Nutella

Hazelnut spread that became a worldwide favourite

Nutella served with crusty bread is a popular snack
in Italy and around the world

The man who invented the global commercial phenomenon that is Nutella spread was born on this day in 1925.

Michele Ferrero, who died in 2015 aged 89, owned the Italian chocolate manufacturer Ferrero SpA, the second largest confectionery producer in Europe after Nestlé.

He was the richest individual in Italy, listed by the Bloomberg Billionaires index in 2014 as the 20th richest person in the world.  The wealth of Michele and his family was put at $20.4 billion, around 14.9 billion euros.

Ferrero is famous for such brands as Ferrero Rocher, Mon Cheri, Kinder and Tic Tacs.  But, it could be argued, none of those names would probably exist had it not been for Nutella.

The chocolate and hazelnut spread came into being after Michele, who was born in the small town of Dogliani in Piedmont, inherited the Ferrero company from his father, Pietro, who died in 1949 only three years after setting up in business from his bakery in nearby Alba.

Michele Ferrero became the richest man in Italy

With high taxes on cocoa beans making conventional chocolate expensive to make, Pietro had managed to build the business by producing a solid confectionery bar that combined Gianduja, a traditional Piedmontese hazelnut paste, with about 20 per cent chocolate.

A creamy, spreadable version was produced in 1951 under the name 'Supercrema' but it was after Michele decided to add palm oil to the recipe that the product really took off.  Renamed Nutella, and sold in a jar, it rolled off the production line at the factory in Alba for the first time on 20 April 1964.

Nutella was instantly popular and remains so more than 50 years later. Ferrero now produces 365,000 tons of Nutella every year in 11 factories around the world, with its biggest markets in Germany, France and Italy.

The 50th anniversary of Nutella's invention was commemorated with a stamp issued by Poste Italiane in 2014.  One fan of the product instigated World Nutella Day, which is celebrated by devotees on 5 February each year.

Building on Nutella's success, Ferrero created the Ferrero Rocher pralines, Kinder bars and Kinder Eggs and a host of other brands. What had begun as a small provincial chocolate factory turned into Italy's most valuable privately-owned company with sales of around 8 billion euros ($9 billion), selling its products in 53 countries.

Michele had a reputation for maintaining good working conditions for Ferrero's 22,000 employees. A fervent Catholic, he had a Madonna placed in every factory and office belonging to the company.

He eventually made his home in Monte Carlo but commuted to Alba by helicopter every day, playing an active role in creating new products until only a few years before his death.

Giovanni Ferrero, the youngest of Michele's two sons, is now the company's Chief Executive.  His brother, Pietro, was unfortunately killed in a cycling accident in South Africa in 2011.

Alba's Romaneque Duomo

Travel tip:

Alba, situated about 65 kilometres south-east of Turin, is a beautiful town famed for the production of white truffle, peaches and elegant wines, including Barbera and Barolo.  The town dates back to Roman times and has been fought over through history by Hungary, France, Spain and Austria among others.  Its partisans won a Gold Medal for Military Valour during the Second World War after liberating the town from Mussolini's Fascists.  Notable buildings include the Romanesque Duomo, built in the 12th century, restructured in the 15th century and further restored in the 19th century.

Travel tip:

Michele Ferrero's home town, about a half-hour drive from Alba to the south-west, Dogliani nestles among vineyards and woods of hazel trees.  Wine production plays an important role in the town's economy, in particular the Dolcetto di Dogliani red, which is made only from Dolcetto grapes grown within a small, clearly defined area, of which the yield is strictly controlled to maintain the wine's high value.  The late 19th century church of San Quirico e Paolo is impressive.  Visitors to the area before Christmas can witness the town's Presepio Vivente, in which local people enact the nativity scene on the nights of 23 and 24 December.

(Photo of Nutella by A Kniesel CC BY-SA 3.0)
(Photo of Duomo in Alba by Pippo-B CC BY-SA 3.0)

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