Marco Zanuso - architect and designer

Innovative ideas put Italy at the forefront of contemporary style

Marco Zanuso

Marco Zanuso, the architect and industrial designer whose innovative ideas helped revolutionize furniture and appliance design in Italy after the Second World War, was born in Milan on this day in 1916. 

Influenced by the Rationalist movement that emerged in the 1920s, he was one of the pioneers of the Modern movement, which brought contemporary styling to mass-produced consumer products.  His use of sculptured shapes, bright colours, and modern synthetic materials helped make Italy a leader in furniture fashion.

Italy had for many years been something of a trendsetter in interior design but during the post-War years, with the fall of Fascism and the rise of Socialism, there was a sense of liberation among Italian creative talents.

With the recovery of the Italian economy there was a substantial growth in industrial production and mass-produced furniture. By the 1960s and 1970s, Italian interior design reached its pinnacle of stylishness.

Zanuso was at the forefront, producing designs that used tubular steel, acrylics, latex foam, fibreglass, foam rubber, and injection-moulded plastics.

His first major successes came for Pirelli, the tyre makers, who in 1948 opened a new division, Arflex, to design seating using foam rubber upholstery. They commissioned Zanuso to produce their first designs and his distinctively shaped "Lady" armchair won first prize at the 1951 Milan Triennale.

A folding radio cube designed by Marco Zanuso and
Richard Sapper for Brionvega

In 1957, Zanuso entered into a partnership with German designer Richard Sapper. 

They convinced consumers that plastic could be a viable material for furniture in the home with a brightly coloured, stackable child's chair. Their moulded metal "Lambda" kitchen chair became a worldwide bestseller.

In 1959, Zanuso and Sapper were hired as consultants to Brionvega, an Italian company trying to produce stylish electronics that would challenge those being made in Japan and Germany. They designed a series of  radios and televisions that became stylistic icons. Their portable "Doney 14" was the first completely transistorised television.

They also designed a folding "Grillo" telephone for Siemens in 1966, one of the first telephones to put the dial and the earpiece on the same unit.

Zanuso turned his ideas and versatility to other household items, including a bright red fan, bright yellow kitchen scales, a knife sharpener and a streamlined sewing machine.

Several of his award-winning product designs eventually became part of a permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

As an architect, Zanuso also designed housing, factories and offices, not only in Italy but in South America and South Africa.

He designed the Olivetti factory buildings in Buenos Aires in 1954, which featured external air conditioning, another Olivetti building in São Paulo, the Necchi sewing machine company's office building in Pavia in Italy and IBM factory buildings in Milan.

As a member of the city planning commission in Milan, his projects included the renovation of the Teatro Fossati and the construction of the Teatro Strehler, a new venue for the Piccolo Teatro della Città di Milano.

The fifth of six sons of an orthopaedic doctor, he trained in architecture at the Milan Polytechnic university and after military service in the Italian Navy he opened his own design office in 1945 and edited the influential design magazines Domus and Casabella.

He taught architecture and design at the Milan Polytechnic from the 1960s, and served twice as president of the Italian Association of Industrial Design.  He continued working into his late 70s, designing a cutlery set for Alessi in 1995.

He died in Milan in 2001, aged 85.  His son, Marco Zanuso Jnr, one of four children, followed him into architecture and design.

Zanuso's Piccolo Teatro Strehler in Milan

Travel tip:

The Piccolo Teatro della Città di Milano, founded in 1947, was Italy's first permanent repertory company. It has three venues, the Teatro Grassi, in Via Rovello, between Sforza Castle and the Piazza del Duomo, the Teatro Studio and the Teatro Strehler.  The company puts on around 30 performances per year, while the venues host cultural events, including festivals, films, concerts, conferences and conventions.

Travel tip:

The Medieval city of Pavia, once the most important town in northern Italy, has many fine churches, including a cathedral boasting one of the largest domes in Italy and the beautiful Romanesque Basilica di San Michele.  The Visconti Castle, surrounded by a large moat, houses the Civic Museum. Another notable attraction is the covered bridge across the Ticino River, a reproduction of a 13th-century bridge destroyed during the Second World War.

(Photo of Zanuso radio by Andrea Pavanello CC BY-SA 3.0)
(Photo of Piccolo Teatro Strehler by Dispe CC BY-SA 3.0)

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The first Giro d'Italia

Tour of Italy cycle race ran from Milan to Naples and back

An exhausted Luigi Ganna after
his 1909 Giro d'Italia triumph

A field of 127 riders left Milan on this day in 1909 as Italy's famous cycle race, the Giro d'Italia, was staged for the first time.

Those who lasted the course returned to Milan 13 days later having covered a distance of 2,447.9 kilometres (1,521 miles) along a route around Italy that took them through Bologna, Chieti, Naples, Rome, Florence, Genoa and Turin.

The winner was Luigi Ganna, an Italian cyclist from Lombardy who had finished fifth in the Tour de France in 1908 and won the Milan-San Remo race earlier in 1909.  Only 49 riders finished.  Second and third places were also filled by Italian riders, with Carlo Galetti finishing ahead of Giovanni Rossignoli.

The race was run in eight stages with two to three rest days between each stage. It was a challenge to the riders' stamina. The stages were almost twice as long as those that make up the Giro today, with an average distance of more than 300 km (190 miles). The modern Giro covers a greater distance in total at 3,481.8 km (2,163.5 miles).

Thankfully, the route was primarily flat, although it did contain a few major ascents, particularly on the third leg between Chieti in Abruzzo and Naples, which took the race across the Apennines. The sixth stage, from Florence to Genoa, and the seventh, from Genoa to Turin, were also classified as mountainous.

Ganna led the overall standings after the second stage but was behind Galetti when the race reached Naples.  However, after he won the Naples-Rome leg he regained the overall lead and held it for the remainder of the race, winning two more stages.  Rossignoli won two of the three mountain stages.

Map showing the route followed by the first
Giro d'Italia in 1909

Galetti could count himself unlucky not to have finished at the top of the standings.  With a crowd of 30,000 turning out to see the participants return to Milan, an escort of mounted police was organised to clear a path for a sprint finish into the Arena Civica.  Just as the sprint was beginning, a police horse fell, causing several riders to crash and allowing Dario Beni, who had also won the opening stage, to pass Galetti, pushing him back into second place.

Ganna finished third but only after the race directors took pity on him after he suffered two punctured tyres, stopping the race to allow him to catch up.  The final points margin was so small that had Galetti won the final stage and Ganna finished only a couple of places further back, then Galetti would have been champion.

In the event, Galetti won by an 18-point margin in 1910 and defended his crown successfully the following year.

The Giro had been the idea of the sports newspaper, La Gazzetta dello Sport, who saw an opportunity to boost their sales by giving Italy its own version of the Tour de France, which had proved hugely popular after its launch in 1903.  The paper raised 25,000 lira to stage the event and provide prize money and the starting line was outside its headquarters in Piazzale Loreto, the square that would 26 years later acquire notoriety as the place where the body of the slain dictator Mussolini was put on public display.

The popularity of the race grew rapidly and it has been staged every year since the 1909 contest, with interruptions only because of the world wars.

The controversies that have cast a shadow over cycling's recent past with the use of performance enhancing drugs were unknown in those early days, although cheating reared its ugly head in the very first Giro.  Three riders were disqualified before the start of the third stage when it was discovered they had taken a train for part of the Bologna-Chieti leg, while the French rider, Louis Trousselier, the 1905 Tour de France winner, had his chances scuppered outside Rome when spectators threw tacks into the road just as he was about to pass.

The main grandstand at Milan's historic Arena Civica

Travel tip:

The Arena Civica, which can be found in the Parco Sempione behind the Castello Sforzesco, is one of Milan's main examples of neoclassical architecture, an elliptical amphitheatre commissioned by Napoleon Bonaparte soon after he became King of Italy in 1805. At one time the home of the Milan football club Internazionale, it is known nowadays as the Arena Gianni Brera and is a venue for international athletics, also hosting rugby union as well as Milan's third football team, Brera Calcio FC.

Travel tip:

Chieti is amongst the most ancient of Italian cities, reputedly founded in 1181BC by the Homeric Greek hero Achilles and named Theate in honour of his mother, Thetis. The city is notable for the Gothic Cathedral of San Giustino, which has a Romanesque crypt dated at 1069 but is mainly of later construction, having been rebuilt a number of times, usually because of earthquake damage.  The main part of the cathedral is in early 18th century Baroque style.  Situated about 20 kilometres inland from Pescara, the city consists of Chieti Alta, the higher part and the historic centre, and the more modern Chieti Scalo.

More reading:

Italy's first football championship


(Photo of Giro d'Italia map by Cruccone CC BY-SA 3.0)
(Photo of Arena Civica by Sergio d'Afflitto CC BY-SA 3.0)

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Cosimo II de' Medici - patron of Galileo

Grand Duke of Tuscany maintained family tradition

Cosimo II de' Medici

Born on this day in Florence in 1590, Cosimo II de' Medici, who was Grand Duke of Tuscany from 1609 until his premature death in 1621, was largely a figurehead ruler during his 12-year reign, delegating administrative powers to his ministers.

His health was never good and he died from tuberculosis aged only 30 yet made his mark by maintaining the Medici family tradition for patronage by supporting the astronomer and physicist Galileo Galilei.

Galileo, from Pisa, had been Cosimo's childhood tutor during the time that he was Professor of Mathematics at the University of Padua.

From the beginnings of the Medici dynasty, with Cosimo the Elder's rise to power in 1434, the family supported the arts and humanities, turning Florence into what became known as the cradle of the Renaissance.

Cosimo the Elder gave his patronage to artists such as Ghiberti, Brunelleschi, Donatello and Fra Angelico.  His grandson, Lorenzo the Magnificent, supported the work of such Renaissance masters as Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo.

Galileo, who also had the patronage of Cosimo's eldest son and heir, Ferdinando II de' Medici, dedicated his treatise Sidereus Nuncius, an account of his telescopic discoveries, to Cosimo. Additionally, Galileo christened the moons of Jupiter the 'Medicean stars'.

Cosimo II was the elder son of Ferdinando I de' Medici, the third Grand Duke of Tuscany, and Christina of Lorraine. Ferdinando arranged for him to marry Archduchess Maria Maddalena of Austria, daughter of Archduke Charles II, in 1608. Together they had eight children, among whom was Cosimo's eventual successor, Ferdinando II, an Archduchess of Inner Austria, a Duchess of Parma and two cardinals.

After he died at the family home at the Palazzo Pitti in Florence, in 1621, the power of Florence and Tuscany began a slow decline.  When the last Medici grand duke, Gian Gastone, died without a male heir in 1737, the family dynasty died with him.

The facade of the Palazzo Pitti in Florence, former
family home of the Medici dynasty

Travel tip:

The Palazzo Pitti, known in English as the Pitti Palace, is situated on the south side of the River Arno, a short distance from the Ponte Vecchio. It was originally the home of Luca Pitti, a Florentine banker, and was bought by the Medici family in 1549, after which it became the chief residence of the ruling families of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. It is now the largest museum complex in Florence, housing eight museums and galleries.

Travel tip:

The Museo Galileo in Florence is in Piazza dei Giudici close to the Uffizi Gallery. It houses one of the biggest collections of scientific instruments in the world in Palazzo Castellani, an 11th century building.

More reading: 

Galileo Galilei, the founder of modern science

Grand designs of Cosimo I

Medici patronage behind invention of piano

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Fanny Cerrito - ballerina

Neapolitan star thrilled audiences across Europe

Francesca 'Fanny' Cerrito

One of the most famous ballerinas of the Romantic era, Francesca 'Fanny' Cerrito was born on this day in 1817, in Naples.

Her talent for dancing emerged early and after training in the ballet school of the famed Naples opera house Teatro di San Carlo she made her debut there in 1832, aged only 15.

She quickly became the darling of the San Carlo and wowed dance audiences in many Italian cities. By the age of 21 she had obtained the position of prima ballerina at La Scala in Milan, working under the direction of Carlo Blasis, another Neapolitan, who was renowned for his rigorous and exacting classes.

When Cerrito and the Swedish-born ballerina, Marie Taglioni, who had Italian heritage, danced in the same programme in Milan, the event caused considerable excitement in the city, with audiences divided in their support for one or the other.

Cerrito's fame spread around Europe and for nine seasons between 1840 and 1848 she became a major attraction at Her Majesty’s Theatre, London, where she worked with the French choreographer Jules Perrot and enjoyed what many critics regarded as her finest performance in Cesare Pugni's Ondine.

Such was her fame that Alexis Soyer, a Frenchman who at the time was London's most celebrated chef, created a dessert in her honour, topped with a miniature figure of the dancer herself, balancing on a spiral of spun sugar.

It was during this time that her talent as a choreographer became recognised after she presented her own ballet, Rosida, in 1845.

London was a magnet for ballet stars and Cerrito and the Austrian dancer, Fanny Elssler, were asked to perform a pas de deux at the personal request of Queen Victoria.

Teatro di San Carlo in Naples, where Cerrito
made her debut in 1832, aged just 15

A voluptuous, physically expressive dancer, she attracted considerable interest on and off the stage and much male attention. It was something that concerned her parents so much that they travelled with her to London essentially to chaperone her.

It was against her parents' wishes that she married Arthur Saint Leon, a Parisian dancer and choreographer four years her junior, with whom she had studied in Vienna.

They toured Europe together for six years but it was a volatile marriage that did not last. In 1851 they separated. In 1853, as a result of an affair with a Spanish nobleman, the Marquis of Bedmar, Cerrito had a daughter, Mathilde.

Cerrito's career took her next to Paris, where among other productions she performed the lead role in her own ballet, Gemma. In 1855 she returned to London to appear at Covent Garden and the Lyceum Theatre.

In 1856 she was invited to take part in celebrations in Moscow for the coronation of Alexander II. While performing there she was injured when struck by a piece of falling scenery and it is thought that this influenced her decision to retire the following year, although by this time she was regarded as past her peak and a new generation of Russian dancers were increasingly in vogue.

Her farewell performance was in London in 1857, at the Lyceum.

She sought peace and quiet in which to raise her daughter and lived a life in Paris that was ultimately so inconspicuous that when she died there in 1909 at the age of 92 it was in relative obscurity.  She is buried in Montmartre Cemetery.

Travel tip:

The Teatro di San Carlo in Naples opened in November 1737, 41 years before La Scala in Milan.   Built in Via San Carlo, close to Piazza Plebiscito, the main square in Naples, Teatro di San Carlo quickly became one of the most important opera houses in Europe. It is believed to be the oldest opera house in the world in which productions are still staged.

Teatro alla Scala in Milan, where Cerrito became
prima ballerina in 1838, working with Carlo Blasis

Travel tip:

Commonly known simply as La Scala, Milan's Teatro alla Scala opera house is situated in the heart of the city, just a short walk from the magnificent Milan duomo (cathedral) by way of the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II.  The opera house includes a fascinating museum that displays costumes and memorabilia from the history of opera. Opening hours are from 9.00 to 12.30 and 1.30 to 5.30pm.

More reading:

The official opening of Teatro di San Carlo in Naples



(Photo of Teatro di San Carlo by Armando Mancini CC BY-SA 2.0)

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Miuccia Prada – fashion designer

Talented businesswoman studied politics and mime

Miuccia Prada Bianchi

Miuccia Prada, the businesswoman behind the fashion label Prada, was born Maria Bianchi on this day in 1949 in Milan.

The youngest granddaughter of the fashion firm’s founder, Mario Prada, she took over the family business in 1978 having previously been a mime student and a member of the Italian Communist Party.

Since then the company, which is famous for its luxury goods, has gone from strength to strength and taken over other labels. Prada has been listed as the 75th most powerful woman in the world, worth an estimated $11 billion.

After graduating with a PhD in political science from the University of Milan, Maria Bianchi trained at the Piccolo Teatro di Milano in mime and was a performer for five years.

As a member of the Italian Communist party she became involved in the women’s rights movement.

She took the name Miuccia Prada in the 1980s, making her first impact on the fashion world with an unusual handbag design in 1985, which was followed by her first women’s ready-to-wear collection.

The Miu Miu line was introduced in 1992 as a less expensive womenswear line and was inspired by Prada’s own personal wardrobe and given her own nickname, Miu Miu.

She is now joint Chief Executive Officer of Prada with her husband, Patrizio Bertelli, who is responsible for the commercial side.

Prada's Milan store in the
Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II

Travel tip:

The main Prada store in Milan is in the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II just off Piazza del Duomo. The elegant, glass-roofed Galleria, which is lined with smart cafes and shops, was built in 1865 to connect Piazza del Duomo with Piazza della Scala and was opened in 1867 by the King, Vittorio Emanuele II.

Travel tip:

The Piccolo Teatro in Milan , where Miuccia Prada trained in mime, was founded in 1947 in Via Rivoli in north west Milan by theatre impresario Paolo Grassi and director Giorgio Strehler. The first public theatre in Italy, it aimed to be an arts theatre for everyone and continues to stage quality productions for the broadest possible audience to this day.

More reading on fashion:

Nina Ricci - designer from Turin who wowed Paris

The Meteoric Rise of Gianni Versace

Guccio Gucci - lift boy who became a fashion giant

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Victor Emmanuel III abdicates

Last ditch bid to save the monarchy fails

Victor Emmanuel III

Italy’s longest-reigning King, Victor Emmanuel III (Vittorio Emanuele III di Savoia), abdicated from the throne on this day in 1946.

To try to save the monarchy, Victor Emmanuel III had earlier transferred his powers to his son, Umberto. But he formally abdicated 70 years ago today, hoping the new King, Umberto II, would be able to strengthen support for the monarchy.

Victor Emmanuel III went to live in Alexandria in Egypt , where he died, after just 18 months in exile, in December 1947.

In contrast with his father, who had been King of Italy for nearly 46 years, Umberto reigned for just over a month, from 9 May to 12 June. The country had voted in a referendum to abolish the monarchy and Italy was declared a republic. Umberto went into exile and was later nicknamed Re di maggio, the May King.

Victor Emmanuel III had at one time been a popular King of Italy, ascending to the throne in 1900 after his father was assassinated in Monza.

During his reign, Italy had been involved in two world wars and experienced the rise and fall of fascism.

At the height of his success he was nicknamed by the Italians Re soldato (soldier King) and Re vittorioso (victorious King) because of Italy’s record in battle during the First World War. He was also sometimes called sciaboletta (little sabre) as he was only five feet (1.53m) tall.

Italy had remained neutral at the start of the War but signed treaties to fight on the side of France, Britain and Russia in 1915. Victor Emmanuel III earned respect as a result of visiting areas in the north affected by the fighting while his wife, Queen Elena, helped the nurses care for the wounded.

But the instability after the First World War led to Mussolini’s rise to power. Victor Emmanuel III was later to claim that it was fear of a civil war that stopped him moving against Mussolini right at the start. But his apparent weakness had dire consequences for the country and he lost support.

He finally dismissed Mussolini and had him arrested in 1943 but it was too late to save the monarchy.

Piazza Plebiscito in Naples, home of the Biblioteca
Nazionale Vittorio Emanuele III

Travel tip:

The National Library in Naples is named after Italy’s longest reigning monarch. Biblioteca Nazionale Vittorio Emanuele III in Piazza Plebiscito is one of the most important libraries in Italy with more than two million books, manuscripts and parchments. It is open daily from 8.30 to 7.30 pm , but closed on Sundays.

Travel tip:

When in Naples, try an authentic Pizza Margherita, named in honour of the mother of Victor Emmanuel III, Queen Margherita. It is claimed that the pizza, with its tomato, basil and mozzarella topping, was created to represent the Italian flag and was named after Queen Margherita in 1889 by a Neapolitan pizza maker, Raffaele Esposito.

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Italy's first football championship

Four teams played three matches - all in one day

The Genoa team that won the Italian Championship
for the third time in 1900

Genoa became the first football champions of Italy on this day in 1898, winning a four-team tournament that took place in Turin in the space of a single day.

The event was organised by the newly-formed Italian Football Federation, set up earlier in the year after Genoa and FC Torinese had met in the first organised match played on Italian soil.

The two other teams invited to take part were also from Turin, namely Internazionale di Torino and Ginnastica Torino.  They assembled at the Velodromo Umberto I, where there was space for a pitch at the centre of a cycle track, with the first match kicking off at 9am.

Internazionale beat FC Torinese 1-0 in the opening game, after which Genoa defeated Ginnastica 2-1. After a break for lunch, the final kicked off at 3pm, Genoa winning again by a 2-1 scoreline, reportedly after playing extra time.  The trophy was presented by the Duke of the Abruzzi.

At least four members of the Genoa team were British, including the goalkeeper, James Spensley, a doctor from Stoke Newington in London who had arrived in the port city in 1897 to look after the health needs of British sailors, who regularly stopped off in Italy en route to or from India via the Suez Canal.

Spensley was one of the pioneers of football in Italy, having organised the historic match between Genoa and FC Torinese. He is held in high regard still in the city, where a plaque can be found on the wall of the house in which he lived.  Today, a section of the modern Genoa supporters' club calls itself Genoa Club Spensley.

Genoa, which even today is still registered as Genoa Football and Cricket Club, retaining the anglicised version of the Italian city name Genova as well as the reference to the very non-Italian game of cricket, tends to be accepted as Italy's oldest football club, although that claim is disputed.

A football match at the Velodromo Umberto I in Turin

Where Genoa was established in 1893, set up by British consular officials mainly to play cricket, there is some evidence that a club was formed in Turin two years earlier, this time by an Italian, Edoardo Bosio, who had become a football enthusiast while working in the textile industry in Nottingham.

Football was already a popular sport in England and Nottingham was home to the world's first professional club, Notts County.  Bosio formed a team called the International Football Club with players drawn from his workplace, although with no other teams to play against their get-togethers were essentially no more than informal kickabouts.

The crowd that witnessed Genoa's triumph was modest.  Around 50 spectators watched the semi-finals and witnesses to the final put the crowd at no more than 100, which was reflected in takings for the day of just 197 lire, the admission charge having been set at one lira, with some discounts.

Life in Italy at the time was tough, however. Food was in short supply and on the very day that the football champions were being crowned in Turin, bread riots were taking place in Milan, with as many as 400 rioters killed after the army was sent in to quell the disorder.

What's more, Italian sports fans were much more interested in cycling, riding and hunting. Football, which had existed in Italy since a game called Calcio Fiorentino was played during the Renaissance, would not catch on for a few more years.

The Italian Championship, though, was established.  The following year it was played over three days while the 1900 event spanned almost three weeks.  By 1910 it had evolved into a season-long league format, with nine teams playing each other home and away.

Genoa were the dominant team for two decades, winning six of the first seven championships, and then three times more until their run came to an end in 1925.

A view over the rooftops of Genoa towards the harbour,
with the tower of San Lorenzo Cathedral in the centre

Travel tip:

The port city of Genoa (Genova), the capital of the Liguria region, has a rich history as a powerful trading centre with considerable wealth built on its shipyards and steelworks, but also boasts many fine buildings, many of which have been restored to their original splendour.  The Doge's Palace, the 16th century Royal Palace and the Romanesque-Renaissance style San Lorenzo Cathedral are just three examples.  The area around the restored harbour area offers a maze of fascinating alleys and squares, enhanced recently by the work of Genoa architect Renzo Piano, and a landmark aquarium, the largest in Italy.

Travel tip:

The Velodrome Umberto I, which was briefly the home of the Juventus football club, was demolished in 1917 as the Crocetta district of Turin saw significant development. Buildings in neo-Gothic and Art-Nouveau style are now characteristic of this elegant area just south of the city centre, criss-crossed with tree-lined avenues. On the northern edge, near the Gallery of Modern Art, is an impressive statue of Victor Emmanuel II, mounted on a 39-metre column.

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