Tommaso Campanella – poet and philosopher

Friar had utopian dream to banish poverty

Tommaso Campanella, as depicted by the
Italian painter Francesco Cozza

Writer Tommaso Campanella was born on this day in 1568 in Stilo in Reggio Calabria and was baptised Giovanni Domenico Campanella.

As a friar who was also a philosopher, Campanella tried to reconcile humanism with Roman Catholicism. He is best remembered for his work, La città del sole (The city of the sun), written in 1602 which was about a utopian commonwealth where every man’s work contributed to the good of the community and there was no poverty.

The son of a poor cobbler, Campanella was an infant prodigy who joined the Dominican order before he was 15, taking the name Fra Tommaso.

He was influenced by the work of philosopher Bernardino Telesio, who opposed Aristotle’s ideas, and he became interested in astrology, which constantly featured in his writing.

After Campanella published his own work, Philosophy Demonstrated by the Senses, which stressed the need for human experience as a basis for philosophy, he was arrested, tried and imprisoned briefly for heresy.

Campanella then became interested in pragmatism and the idea of political reform, moved deeply by the poverty of the people living in his native Stilo.

Campanella's house in Stilo in Calabria

He became involved in a plot to overthrow Spanish rule in Calabria but the plot was discovered and he was arrested and taken to Naples.

He confessed under torture and, after feigning madness to escape death, was sentenced to life imprisonment.

During his 27 years in prison he wrote poetry, which is now considered to be the most original of the period, and books about religion and philosophy.

One month after his release from prison he was arrested again for heresy in Rome but because of his reputation as an astrologer he was freed after the intervention of Pope Urban VIII.

When he was again accused of plotting against the Spanish he fled to France and the protection of King Louis XIII and Cardinal Richelieu.

He spent the rest of his life in a convent in Paris and died in 1639 at the age of 70.

Travel tip:

Reggio di Calabria, often referred to simply as Reggio Calabria, or just Reggio, is the biggest city in the region of Calabria in southern Italy near the ‘toe’ of the Italian peninsula. Its seafront promenade facing Messina in Sicily across the Straits, has been described as ‘the most beautiful kilometre of Italy’.

The Cattolica di Stilo has survived from the ninth century

Travel tip:

Stilo, where Tommaso Campanella was born, is a town in the province of Reggio Calabria, where his house is marked with a plaque.  It still has a ninth century church, the Cattolica di Stilo, which was built in the Byzantine style. In 1940, the Italian navy fought the British navy in the Battle of Punta Stilo, just off the promontory of Cape Stilo, which is about six kilometres from the town.  It was known by the British navy as the Battle of Calabria.

(Photo of Campanella's house by Marcuscalabresus CC BY-SA 3.0)
(Photo of Cattolica di Stilo by Salli CC BY-SA 3.0)

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Saint Rosalia

Little Saint ended the plague in Palermo

Saint Rosalia, as envisaged by Anthony
Van Dyck in a 1625 representation

The Feast Day of Saint Rosalia is being celebrated today in Sicily, throughout the rest of Italy, in America, Venezuela and in many other countries.

Saint Rosalia, also known as La Santuzza, or the Little Saint, is the patron saint of Palermo as well as three towns in Venezuela.

Centuries after Rosalia’s death, the people of Palermo believed she ended the plague when what they thought were her remains were carried in a procession through the city.

Rosalia was born in Palermo in about 1130 into a noble Norman family that claimed to descend from Charlemagne.

She became devoutly religious and eventually went to live as a hermit in a cave on Mount Pellegrino in Sicily.

There is a story that she was led by two angels to live in the cave and that she wrote on the wall that she had chosen to live there out of her love for Jesus. She is believed to have died in 1166 when she would have been about 36.

In 1624 when Palermo was afflicted by the plague, Rosalia appeared first to a sick woman and then to a hunter to tell them where her remains were to be found. She told the hunter to bring her bones to Palermo to be carried in a procession through the city.

A statue of Santa Rosalia in
Monterey, California

The hunter found her bones in the place she had described to him and after they had been carried round Palermo three times the plague mercifully ended.

Saint Rosalia was chosen to be the patron saint of Palermo and a sanctuary was built in the cave where her remains were discovered.

Every year on September 4 it is traditional for people to walk barefoot from Palermo up to Mount Pellegrino.

In the United States a feast is held on September 4 in Brooklyn in New York and there is a statue of Saint Rosalia in Monterey, California, where her feast is celebrated every year by Italian fishermen.


Travel tip:

Sicily is the largest island in the Mediterranean, just off the toe of Italy’s boot. The ancient ruins, diverse architecture and wonderful cuisine enjoyed by visitors are all testament to the island’s colourful history. Watching over the island is Mount Etna, a volcano that is still active.

The Santuario di Santa Rosalia sits
on top of Mount Pellegrino

Travel tip:

Palermo, the capital of Sicily, is a vibrant city with a wealth of beautiful architecture, plenty of shops and markets to browse in, and a large opera house, the Teatro Massimo, which is the biggest in Italy. The Santuario di Santa Rosalia stands at the top of Mount Pellegrino, which overlooks the city.

(Photo of Santa Rosalia statue by Nheyob CC BY-SA 4.0)
(Photo of Santuario di Santa Rosalia by Giuseppe ME CC BY-SA 4.0)

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San Marino - world's oldest sovereign state

Republic founded in 301 as Christian refuge

The extraordinary fortress of Guaita in San Marino
stands at the top of one of Mount Titano's three peaks

The Most Serene Republic of San Marino, an independent state within Italy, was founded on this day in 301.

Situated on the north east side of the Apennine mountains, San Marino claims to be the oldest surviving sovereign state and constitutional republic in the world.  Of the world's 196 independent countries, it is the fifth smallest, covering an area of just 61 square kilometres or 24 square miles.

It is also the sole survivor of Italy's once all-powerful city state network, having outlasted such mighty neighbours as Genoa and Venice.  San Marino grew from a monastic community, taking its names from Saint Marinus of Alba in Croatia, a Christian who had been working as a stonemason in Rimini when he was forced to flee Roman persecution and escaped to Mount Titano, where he built a church and founded both the city and state of San Marino.

A constitution was written in the 16th century and its status as an independent state was accepted by the papacy in 1631.

San Marino managed to survive the advance of Napoleon's armies in the late 18th century and then had its wish for continued independence honoured during the Italian unification process after offering refuge to persecuted supporters of Giuseppe Garibaldi.  It remained neutral during the First World War and although it spent the interwar years in the control of the Sammarinese Fascist Party, it was able to preserve its independence during the Second World War.

From 1945, it was home to the world's first democratically elected Communist goverment, which survived for 12 years. It is now a multi-party democracy in which the two biggest groupings are the Christian Democrats and the Party of Socialists and Democrats.

San Marino's own Statue of Liberty in front
of the Palazzo Pubblico

Although not a member of the European Union, San Marino is allowed to use the euro as currency, and has its own postage stamps. The republic’s football team compete in the World Cup.  Yet despite its independence, there are no border controls with Italy.

Tourism is a significant part of the San Marino economy, with two million visitors a year.  Its capital is the City of San Marino and its largest city is Dogana.   Most of the attractions are in San Marino city, including the Three Towers, the Cathedral of San Marino and the medieval Palazzo Pubblico.

Every year, a festival is held on September 3 to celebrate the founding of the republic in 301.

Travel tip:

The Palazzo Pubblico is the town hall of the City of San Marino as well as its official government building. The overall design, featuring battlements and corbels, is similar to the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, but on a much smaller scale.

The Cesta tops Monte Titano's highest peak

Travel tip:

The Three Towers of San Marino are a group of towers located on the three peaks of Monte Titano. The Guaita is the oldest of the three towers, and the most famous, constructed in the 11th century, and served briefly as a prison, the Cesta is located on the highest of Monte Titano's summits and includes a museum to honour Saint Marinus. The Montale, the only one of the three not open to the public, was built in the 14th century and was also once used as a prison.

More reading:

Little Tony - the Elvis of San Marino

(Photo of Guaita by Max_Ryzanov CC BY-SA 3.0)
(Photo of Cesta by Radomil CC BY-SA 3.0)

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Giuliano Gemma – actor

Talented Roman became award winning film star

Giuliano Gemma (left) with fellow Italian actor Alberto Sordi
pictured in a scene from the film Venezia, la luna e tu

Actor, stuntman and sculptor Giuliano Gemma was born on this day in 1938 in Rome.

He started working in the film industry as a stuntman but was then offered a real part in the film Arrivano i titani, The Titans Arrive, by director Duccio Tessari.

After this his career took off and he appeared in Luchino Visconti’s Il Gattopardo, The Leopard, as Garibaldi’s General.

Gemma starred in many spaghetti westerns, such as A Pistol for Ringo, Blood for a Silver Dollar, Wanted and Day of Anger. He sometimes appeared in the credits of the films under the name Montgomery Wood.

For his portrayal of Major Matiss in Valerio Zurlini’s The Desert of the Tartars, he won a David di Donatello award.

Gemma had many other film roles, often appeared on Italian television and also worked as a sculptor.

His daughter, Vera Gemma, also became an actor.

Giuliano Gemma died in October 2013 following a car accident near Rome. He was taken to a hospital in Civitavecchia but pronounced dead shortly after his arrival.

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.

Bernini's Fontana del Tritone

Travel tip:

One of the most stunning sights in Rome is the Fontana del Tritone in Piazza Barberini in Rome’s centro storico - the historic centre - which was sculpted by Bernini between 1642 and 1643 and has remained intact over the centuries as the square’s centrepiece.

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Tullio Serafin – opera conductor

Toscanini’s successor furthered the career of Callas

Tullio Serafin

The man who helped Maria Callas develop her singing talent, musician and conductor Tullio Serafin, was born on this day in 1878 in Rottanova near Cavarzere in the Veneto, on the Adige river just south of the Venetian Lagoon.

Serafin studied music in Milan and went on to play the viola in the orchestra at Teatro alla Scala under the baton of Arturo Toscanini.

He was later appointed assistant conductor and then took over as musical director at the theatre when Toscanini left to go to New York.

Serafin conducted at La Scala between 1909 and 1914, from 1917 to 1918 and then returned briefly at the end of the Second World War.

He became a conductor at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in 1924 and stayed with them for ten years before returning to Italy to become artistic director at the Teatro Reale in Rome.

During his career he helped the development of many singers, including Rosa Ponselle, Magda Olivero and Joan Sutherland.

Serafin’s most notable success was with Maria Callas, with whom he collaborated on many recordings. He is credited with helping the American-born singer achieve a major breakthrough in 1949 when he persuaded her to take over from the leading belcanto soprano Margeritha Carosio at the opening night of Bellini's I Puritani at La Fenice in Venice after Carosio was forced to withdraw through illness.

Callas protested that she was inadequately prepared but her performance received rave reviews, giving her the confidence to expand her repertoire.  Thereafter, success followed success.

The conductor was also responsible for reviving 19th century operas by Bellini, Rossini and Donizetti and establishing them in the 20th century repertoire.

Serafin died in 1968 in Rome at the age of 89.

The bell tower of the Duomo and the
Palazzo Barbiani in Cavarzere

Travel tip:

Rottanova, where Serafin was born, is a small hamlet on the outskirts of Cavarzere, a comune situated about 35km south of Venice in the Veneto. Cavarzere dates back to before Roman times when it was a military outpost. It later became a refuge for people escaping from the barbarians after the fall of the Roman Empire.

Travel tip:

Teatro alla Scala, where Serafin conducted for so many years, is in Piazza della Scala in the centre of Milan across the road from the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II. La Scala has a fascinating museum that displays costumes and memorabilia from the history of opera. The entrance is in Largo Ghiringhelli, just off Piazza della Scala. It is open every day except the Italian Bank Holidays and a few days when it is closed in December. Opening hours are from 9.00 to 12.30 and 1.30 to 5.30pm.

HomeHome.30 to 5.30 pm.

Amilcare Ponchielli - opera composer

Success of La Gioconda put musician on map

Amilcare Ponchielli composed 11 operas

The opera composer Amilcare Ponchielli was born on this day in 1834 in Paderno Fasolaro, near Cremona, about 100km south-east of Milan in what is now Lombardia.

Ponchielli's works in general enjoyed only modest success, despite the rich musical invention for which he was later applauded.  One that did win acclaim in his lifetime, however, was La Gioconda, which was first produced in 1876 and underwent several revisions but remained unaltered after 1880.

Well known for the tenor aria, Cielo e Mar, and the ballet piece, Dance of the Hours, La Gioconda is the only opera by Ponchielli still performed today and many recordings have been made, featuring some of the biggest stars of recent times.

Maria Callas, Renata Tebaldi and Montserrat Caballe are among those to have played the role of Gioconda, written for soprano, while the lead tenor part of Enzo, whose affections are sought both by Gioconda and another major character, Laura, has been taken by Giuseppe Di Stefano, Carlo Bergonzi, Luciano Pavarotti and Placido Domingo among others.

Ponchielli had such a talent for music that he won a scholarship to Milan Conservatory at nine years old and had written his first symphony by the time he was 10.

He left the Conservatory in disappointment after being denied the professorship that was supposed to have been his prize in a competition and for a number of years his main musical occupation was as a bandmaster, at first in Piacenza and then Cremona.  He arranged and wrote more than 200 compositions for wind instruments.

The Milan Conservatory, which Ponchielli attended
from the age of nine years

His passion for opera was undiminished, however, and he achieved his first breakthrough with I promessi sposi (The Betrothed), an opera based on the novel by Alessandro Manzoni, which he had originally written soon after completing his studies and which earned him his first contract with a music publisher in 1872.

The original premiered at the Teatro Concordia in Cremona in 1856; the revised version was first performed at the Teatro Dal Verme in Milan. The leading soprano role was taken by Teresina Brambilla, from Cassano d'Adda, just outside Milan, whom Ponchielli would marry.

Ponchielli wrote 11 operas in total but none won him the acclaim he received for La Gioconda, which was based on Angelo, Tyrant of Padua, a play by Victor Hugo.

Listen to Luciano Pavarotti performing Cielo e Mar from La Gioconda

Nonetheless, works such as Il figliuol prodigo and Marion Delorme, from another play by Victor Hugo, both performed at Teatro alla Scala in Milan, are recognised as having been influences on a new generation of composers from which Giacomo Puccini, Pietro Mascagni and Umberto Giordano emerged.

In 1881, Ponchielli was appointed maestro di cappella of Bergamo Cathedral, and from the same year he was a professor of composition at the Milan Conservatory, where his students included Puccini, Mascagni and Emilio Pizzi.

He died of pneumonia in Milan in 1886 and was buried in the city's Monumental Cemetery.

Travel tip:

Paderno Fasolaro, a small town in the heart of the Po Valley, is now known as Paderno Ponchielli in honour of its most famous native son.  It was given the name after local residents began a petition on the 100th anniversary of his birth in 1934, although it took until 1950 for the President of the Republic, Luigi Einaudi, to issue a decree making the change legal.

The cathedral at Cremona is a fine
example of Romanesque style

Travel tip:

The city of Cremona has a strong musical tradition, particularly in the production of violins and other stringed instruments.  It was home to rival violin makers Antonio Stradivari, Giuseppe Guarneri and the Amati family.  Cremona has an exceptional Romanesque cathedral, with an ornate facade including a Renaissance logia with three niches, flanked by two orders of loggette (small logias).

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Joe Petrosino - New York crime fighter

Campanian immigrant a key figure in war against Mafia

Joe Petrosino, the New York cop from Campania
who wanted to protect the good name of Italians

Joe Petrosino, a New York police officer who dedicated his life to fighting organised crime, was born Giuseppe Petrosino in Padula, a southern Italian town on the border of Campania and Basilicata, on this day in 1860.

The son of a tailor, Prospero Petrosino, he emigrated to the United States at the age of 12.  The family lived in subsidised accommodation in Mulberry Street, part of the area now known as Little Italy on the Lower East Side towards Brooklyn Bridge, where around half a million Italian immigrants lived in the second half of the 19th century.

Giuseppe took any job he could to help the family, at first as a newspaper boy and then shining shoes outside the police headquarters on Mulberry Street, where he would dream of becoming a police officer himself.

In 1878, by then fluent in English and known to everyone as Joe, Petrosino became an American citizen but it took him five years and repeated applications to realise his dream of joining the police. At 5ft 3ins he was technically too short to meet the criteria for an officer but after the police began to use him as an informant it was decided he could be of use in the fight against Italian organised crime. He was the first Italian-speaking officer in the history of the New York Police Department.

His career progressed partly because of his friendship with Theodore Roosevelt, the future president, who was then a police commissioner in New York.  Noting his success in solving crimes involving Italians, Roosevelt promoted him to detective sergeant in the Homicide Division, after which Petrosino was hand-picked to lead a newly-formed Italian Squad, comprising Italian-American detectives.

Enrico Caruso, victim of  a blackmail
attempt foiled by Petrosino

The Italian Squad was set up specifically to fight against the rise of criminal organisations such as the Mafia and it appealed to Petrosino, who saw the Mafia as bringing shame to decent Italian-Americans. By the time of his appointment to the new division, in 1908, the Italian immigrant population of Manhattan and Brooklyn had grown to more than a million, living mainly in Little Italy, East Harlem and Williamsburg.

Petrosino achieved notable successes in hampering Mafia activities, often working undercover. Famously, he tracked down and arrested mobsters attached to the so-called Black Hand who were attempting to blackmail the Italian tenor, Enrico Caruso, while he was performing at the Metropolitan Opera House.

In 1907 he married Adelina Saulino, the daughter of the owner of a restaurant he frequented, with whom he rented an apartment in Lafayette Street, just one block away from his childhood home in Mulberry Street.  They had a daughter in 1908.

The marriage was shortlived, although for tragic reasons.  Despatched on a secret mission to Sicily in 1909, armed with a list of New York criminals with links to the island, Petrosino was to gather evidence aimed at facilitating the deportation under new legislation of Italians with criminal convictions in their own country.

However, soon after Petrosino had set sail, Theodore A Bingham, who had succeeded Roosevelt as police commissioner, gave an interview to the New York Herald in which he discussed the officer's mission, which as a result was no longer so secret.

Petrosino's ship docked in Genoa, after which he stopped off in Milan, Bologna and Rome before paying a visit to his brother, Vincenzo, in Padula, en route to Sicily.

Petrosino's hearse paraded through New York

Soon after he arrived in Palermo, Petrosino received a message from somebody claiming to have information that would be helpful to him and arranged to meet them in the city's Piazza della Marina. It was a trap.  While waiting for his supposed informant, Petrosino was hit by three bullets from the gun of a Mafia assassin and died on the spot.

A funeral took place in Palermo, after which Petrosino's body was returned to New York and another ceremony took place at St Patrick's Cathedral in Mott Street, which runs parallel with Mulberry Street in Little Italy, after which a procession of 200,000 people followed the coffin to the Calvary Cemetery in Queens.

No one was convicted of Petrosino's killing, although Vito Cascio Ferro, one of his targets for arrest, was detained, only to be released when an associate came forward with an alibi. More than a century later, a descendant under investigation by the Italian police confessed that it was known within the family that Vito Cascio Ferro had ordered his murder.

Travel tip:

Padula, which is situated just outside the beautiful Cilento National Park in Campania, is a small community of just over 5,200 people about 100km south of Salerno, notable for the Padula Charterhouse - Certosa di Padula in Italian - the largest monastery in Italy with a physical area of some 51,500 square metres (12.7 acres) and 320 rooms.

One of the entrances to the Certosa di Padula

Travel tip:

The majestic Cilento and Vallo di Diano National Park extends from the Tyrhennian coast to the feet of the Campania-Lucania Apennines. It includes coastal and mountain areas which play host to an abundance of wild life but there is also a rich cultural history, notably the Greek ruins at Velia and Paestum. 

More reading:

Libero Grassi - the Palermo businessman who refused to pay his pizzo

Carlo Gambino - was the notorious Mafia Don the model for Puzo's Godfather?

(Photo of Certosa di Padula by Enrico Viceconte CC BY-SA 2.0)

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