Battista 'Pinin' Farina - car designer

Family's 'smallest brother' became giant of automobile history

Battista 'Pinin' Farina (right) pictured with
 Fiat's Gianni Agnelli

Battista 'Pinin' Farina, arguably the greatest of Italy's long roll call of outstanding automobile designers, was born on this day in 1893 in the village of Cortanze in Piedmont.

His coachbuilding company Carrozzeria Pininfarina became synonymous with Italian sports cars and influenced the design of countless luxury and family cars thanks to the partnerships he forged with Alfa Romeo, Fiat, Lancia, Nash, Peugeot, Rolls Royce and others - most notably Ferrari, with whom his company has had a continuous relationship since 1951.

Among the many iconic marques that Pinin and his designers created are the Alfa Romeo Giulietta Spider, the Ferrari Dino 206 and the Cisitalia 202.

Battista was the 10th of 11 children raised by his parents in Cortanze, a small community in the province of Asti, situated about 30km (19 miles) east of Turin.  He was always known as 'Pinin', a word from Piemontese dialect meaning 'smallest brother'.  In 1961, he had his name legally changed to Pininfarina.

He acquired his love of cars at a young age and from 12 years old he spent every spare moment working at his brother Giovanni’s body shop, Stabilimenti Industriali Farina, learning about bodywork and design.

Pinin Farina's breakthrough design, the stylishly
aerodynamic 1947 Cisitalia 202

Five years later, even before he was 18, he won his first commission, to design the radiator for the new Fiat Zero.

He could have emigrated to America, where the exponential growth of the automotive industry intrigued him.  He obtained an interview with Henry Ford and was offered a job but turned it down, preferring to return to Italy with the ideas he had gathered and a dream to start his own business.

In 1930, by which time he had married and started his own family, he left his brother and opened Carrozzeria Pinin Farina from a workshop on Corso Trapani in Turin.  Vincenzo Lancia, whom he had met during a brief career as a racing driver, was one of his first customers, along with Fiat and Alfa Romeo.

The Second World War interrupted the growth of the business and as an Italian Pinin found himself shackled somewhat in the aftermath as the hugely important Paris Auto Show barred him from exhibiting as a citizen of a former Axis power.

It was not long, however, before he had the break that was to establish the name of Battista Pinin Farina as one of the great car designers, when Piero Dusio, a wealthy Turin industrialist and racing driver, offered him a commission to produce a car on behalf of the Compagnia Industriale Sportiva Italia. 

The result, the Cisitalia 202, a two-seater sports car, broke away from traditional boxy designs and presented a single shell notable for its continuous flowing lines, in which the body, hood, headlights and fenders were integral to the overall, aerodynamic design.

Although not a huge commercial success, because it was a handmade rather than mass-produced model, it is still regarded as one of the most beautiful cars ever made, to the extent that it was exhibited at the New York Museum of Modern Art.

The Alfa Romeo Giulietta Spider, the first high
volume success for Pinin Farina's company

The company expanded and prospered through the 1950s, moving to a larger site at Grugliasco, outside Turin, in 1958.  Apart from commissions from all the major Italian manufacturers, Pinin Farina began to work on behalf of companies outside Italy, breaking into the American market with Nash and later Cadillac, designing for the French manufacturer Peugeot, and for BMC in Britain.

Commercially, the first high volume success was the aforementioned Alfa Romeo Giulietta Spider, the open-top two seater.  In the first year of production, in 1956, the Grugliasco plant turned out 1,025 Spiders.  By 1959, with a high number of orders from the United States, it had risen to 4,000 a year.

Pininfarina's relationship with Ferrari began in 1951, when Pinin met Enzo Ferrari in a restaurant in Tortona, halfway between Pininfarina's headquarters and Ferrari's base in Modena.  The two men struck a deal over dinner, after which Pininfarina took responsibility for all aspects of Ferrari design, engineering and production in a relationship that in the next half century would create some of the most expensive and prestigious but most aesthetically beautiful cars in the industry's history.

Pinin retired in 1961, putting the business in the hands of his son, Sergio, and his son-in-law, Renzo Carli. He died in Lausanne, Switzerland in 1966, aged 72.

Sergio ran Pininfarina until 2001, then handing over to his own son, Andrea, who was tragically killed in a road accident in 2008.

The company, based now in Cambiano, much smaller than at its peak and no longer a producer of cars, is now 76 per cent owned by the Indian Mahindra Group, but retains a Pininfarina link through its chairman, Paolo Pininfarina, Andrea's younger brother.

Travel tip:

The medieval village of Cortanze, home nowadays to just a few hundred residents, has been the site of a settlement since Roman times.  Later it was controlled by the bishops of Asti before falling in turn into the hands of the armies of Savoy, France and Spain in the 18th century.  There is a medieval castle, its style typical of Piemontese castles, that has been restored and is open to the public and a number of notable churches, including the 17th century Church of the Saints Pietro and Giovanni.

The Piazza Duomo in Tortona

Travel tip:

Tortona, where Pinin Farina and Enzo Ferrari struck their historic deal in 1951, is an elegant small city not far from Alessandria in the area of Piedmont that borders Liguria.  It has a neat colonnaded square around the Duomo, the main structure of which was built in the 16th century with a neoclassicist facade added in the 19th century.  There are some Roman remains thought to be of the mausoleum of the Emperor Maiorianus.

More reading:

Vittorio Jano - engine maker behind racing success of Ferrari

Enrico Piaggio - the man behind the Vespa scooter

How Sergio Marchionne rescued Fiat

Also on this day:

The death of Bartolomeo Colleoni, the professional soldier charged with defending 15th-century Bergamo. 

(Photo of Alfa Romeo Giulietta by genossegerd CC BY-SA 3.0)


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Pietro da Cortona – painter and architect

Outstanding exponent of Baroque style

Pietro da Cortona: a self-portrait

Artist Pietro da Cortona was born Pietro Berrettini on this day in 1596 in Cortona in Tuscany.

Widely known by the name of his birthplace, Cortona became the leading Italian Baroque painter of his time and contributed to the emergence of Baroque architecture in Rome.

Having been born into a family of artisans and masons, Cortona went to Florence to train as a painter before moving to Rome, where he was involved in painting frescoes at the Palazzo Mattei by 1622.

His talent was recognised and he was encouraged by prominent people in Rome at the time. He was commissioned to paint a fresco in the church of Santa Bibiana that was being renovated under the direction of Gian Lorenzo Bernini in 1624.

Then, in 1633, Pope Urban VIII commissioned Cortona to paint a large fresco on the ceiling of the Grand Salon at Palazzo Barberini, his family’s palace. Cortona’s huge Allegory of Divine Providence and Barberini Power marked a watershed in Baroque painting as he created an illusion of an open, airy architectural framework against which figures were situated, creating spatial extension through the medium of paint.

Cortona's masterpiece: the ceiling
of the Palazzo Barberini

Cortona was commissioned in 1637 by Grand Duke Ferdinand II dè Medici to paint a series of frescoes representing the four ages of man in the Palazzo Pitti in Florence. He returned there in 1640 to paint the ceilings of a suite of apartments in the palace that were named after the planets.

Cortona trained a number of artists to disseminate his grand manner style, which had been influenced by his interest in antique sculpture and the work of Raphael.

Towards the end of his life, Cortona spent his time involved in architectural projects, such as the design of the church of Santi Luca e Martina in Rome and the design and decoration of the Villa Pigneto just outside the city.

Cortona died in 1669 at the age of 72 in Rome.

The Via Janelli in Cortona: reputed to be
one of the oldest streets in Italy

Travel tip:

Cortona, the birthplace of Pietro da Cortona, was founded by the Etruscans and is one of the oldest cities in Tuscany. Powerful during the medieval period it was defeated by Naples in 1409 and then sold to Florence. The medieval houses that still stand in Via Janelli are some of the oldest houses still surviving in Italy.


Travel tip

Palazzo Barberini, where Pietro da Cortona painted his masterpiece on the ceiling of the Grand Salon, is just off Piazza Barberini in the centre of Rome. The palace was completed in 1633 for Pope Urban VIII and the design was the work of three great architects, Carlo Maderno, Francesco Borromini and Gian Lorenzo Bernini. The palace now houses part of the collection of Italy’s National Gallery of Ancient Art.

Also on this day:

The birth of sculptor Antonio Canova, creator of The Three Graces

More reading:

Cigoli - the first to paint a realistic moon

Raphael - precocious genius renowned for Vatican frescoes

Michelangelo - 'the greatest artist of all time'



(Photo of Palazzo Barberini ceiling by Livioandronico CC BY-SA 4.0)
(Photo of Via Janelli in Cortona by Geobia CC BY-SA 3.0)

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Eduardo De Filippo - Neapolitan dramatist

Playwright captured essence of city's spirit

A playwright and dramatist, Eduardo De
Filippo was also an accomplished actor

One of Italy’s greatest dramatists, Eduardo De Filippo, died on this day in 1984 in Rome at the age of 84.

An actor and film director as well as a playwright, De Filippo – often referred to simply as Eduardo – is most remembered as the author of a number of classic dramas set in his native Naples in the 1940s that continue to be performed today.

Arguably the most famous of these was Filomena marturano, upon which was based the hit movie Marriage, Italian Style, which starred Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni under the direction of Vittorio de Sica. 

De Filippo’s other memorable works included Napoli Milionaria, Le voci di dentro and Sabato, domenica e lunedi.

All of these plays showcased De Filippo’s ability to capture the essence of life in Naples in his time, particularly in the working class neighbourhoods that he felt were the beating heart of the city.

Rich in Neapolitan dialect, they were often bittersweet comedies of family life. They were social commentaries in which typical themes were the erosion of morals in times of desperation, the struggle of the downtrodden to retain their dignity and the preservation of family values even in the most poverty-stricken households.

Born out of wedlock, the son of a playwright, Eduardo Scarpetta, and the seamstress and costumier Luisa De Filippo, Eduardo was destined for a life in the theatre and appeared in one of his father’s plays at the age of five.

De Filippo often played opposite his sister, Titina

At 32 he formed his own stage company, the ‘Compagnie del Teatro Umoristico i de Filippo’, with his brother Peppino and sister Titina. The trio enjoyed success in films and on the stage in the 1930s but broke up soon after the Second World War.

But it was his plays that were his enduring legacy, for which many critics place him among the greatest of Italian dramatists, in the company of Carlo Goldoni and Luigi Pirandello.

Napoli milionaria (Naples Millionaire), written in 1945 is a realistic drama about a family's involvement in the Italian black market, set against the deprivations of war.He followed this with Questi fantasmi! (Neapoliitan Ghosts), a 1946 comedy in which a husband mistakes his wife's lover for a ghost.

In the same year came Filumena marturano, in which a former prostitute obtains financial stability for her three children by persuading her lover he is the father of one of them, without saying which.

De Filippo continued in 1948 with Le voci di dentro (Inner Voices), in which a man mistakes for reality a dream in which a friend is murdered by neighbours.

De Filippo (right) with the Italian president,
Sandro Pertini. De Filippo was made a life senator

His work became popular outside Italy.  In 1972, with his own production company, he took Naples Millionaire to London. The following year, the National Theatre in London produced Saturday, Sunday, Monday, directed by Franco Zeffirelli, with Joan Plowright and Frank Finlay. It won the London drama critics’ award as the best play of the year.

De Filippo, who had begun directing films in 1940, had some success as a director in the 1950s, his films largely light comedies.

In 1979, Laurence Olivier directed Frank Finlay and Joan Plowright in Filumena. Later, Sir Ralph Richardson had the final role of his career, playing Don Alberto, in the National Theatre's 1983 production of Inner Voices.

Filumena remains popular in Russia, where it is not forgotten that, in the 1960s in Moscow, the audience demanded and were granted 24 curtain calls after Eduardo's own company performed the work.

Napoli Milionaria, which opened at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples in March,1945, featuring Eduardo himself, became a film in 1951, with him in the leading role. It was also adapted as an opera with music by the film composer, Nino Rota, and a libretto written by Eduardo himself. It opened in June 1977 at the Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto.

In 1981, De Filippo was appointed life senator of the Italian Republic. He died three years later.

The sumptuous interior of the Teatro San Carlo

Travel tip:

The Teatro San Carlo, Europe’s oldest theatre and opera house, suffered bomb damage during the war and its rebirth was a testament to the determination of Neapolitans not to allow their city’s heritage to be crushed. After one raid in 1943, the foyer that runs the whole length of the theatre suffered blast damage, many of the boxes were unusable, the dressing rooms were hit, the scenery and paint shop, the costume and wardrobe stores left beyond repair. Yet within a week the theatre was up and running again and staging musical productions. De Filippo’s play. Napoli Milionaria, which premiered there in 1945, was hailed for reflecting the city’s resourcefulness in the most testing of circumstances.

Travel tip:

Although Italian spoken by Neapolitans is often clear and easy to follow if you have some acquaintance with the language, dialect is widely used and many words differ from standard Italian. For a tomato, for example, Neapolitans say pummarola rather than pomodoro; for boy or girl they use the word guaglio/a rather than ragazzo/a; and for this and that (questo e quello) they say chisto and chillo.  In O Sole Mio, the famous Neapolitan song, the ‘O’ means ‘the’, as in ‘The sun of mine’ not ‘Oh sun of mine’.

More reading:

Roberto Benigni - Oscar winning director and star of Life is Beautiful

Arnold Foà - versatile actor still doing stage work in his 90s

Anna Magnani - earthy character actress who won over Rossellini

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Charles Atlas - bodybuilder

Poor immigrant from Calabria who transformed his physique

Charles Atlas, born Angelo Siciliano,
pictured in around 1920

The bodybuilder Charles Atlas was born Angelo Siciliano on this day in 1893 in the Calabrian town of Acri.

Acri, set 720m above sea level straddling two hills in the province of Cosenza, on the edge of what is now the mountainous Sila National Park, was a poor town and while Angelo was growing up his father, Santos, began thinking about joining the growing number of southern Italians who had gone to forge a new life in America.

They made the move when Angelo was 11.  The journey by sea from Naples took around two weeks. After registering their arrival at Ellis Island, the immigrant inspection station in New York Bay, the family settled in Brooklyn.  Most accounts of Angelo’s life suggest that his father, a farmer, returned to Italy within a short time but his mother remained, taking work as a seamstress and endeavouring to make a better life for her children.

Angelo’s path to becoming Charles Atlas and enjoying worldwide fame began with a classic story of bullying. Like many Italian children of his time, having been born in part of the country where living conditions were difficult and good food was in short supply, he was sickly and scrawny, an easy target to be picked on.

Humiliated at the beach by being knocked down by a physically stronger youth and having sand kicked in his face, Angelo was determined to build up his physique so that he might one day feel that no one could bully him.

He was inspired by the statues of Hercules, Apollo and Zeus at Brooklyn Museum and began to train with home-made weights at his local YMCA.  

The Dawn of Glory, a statue in Brooklyn
for which Atlas was the model

It was on a visit to the Prospect Park Zoo that he hit upon the idea that there might be another way to develop his body without using weights. It would become the foundation of his life and the business that would make him a wealthy man.

It came to him as he marvelled at the physical magnificence of lions. While watching a lion stretch, he realized that the enormous animal was undergoing a natural workout  by "pitting one muscle against another", harnessing his own strength to make himself stronger still.

Back at home, Angelo began to devise isometric and isotonic exercises that required no weights, which had the effect of honing and strengthening his body remarkably quickly.

Friends who noticed the change nicknamed him Atlas after the figure in Greek mythology who was required to carry the heavens on his shoulders.

By the age of 19, Angelo was able to make money by selling a device he had made as a chest developer in front of stores in Manhattan, and performing feats of strength in vaudeville shows.  Then he was introduced to New York’s community of sculptors who would pay him to be the model for numerous statues. The 97lb weakling he had dubbed himself when the bullies were doing their worst now weighed 180lb. He had a 47in chest, 17in biceps and 24in thighs - but a waist of just 32in.

He won bodybuilding competitions, changed his name to Charles Atlas and opened a mail order business, selling his equipment and accompanying lifestyle guidance.  It thrived for a while but his business sense was poor. He made poor decisions and spread himself too thin.

The famous ad for Atlas's method,
designed by Charles Roman

It all changed, though, when he met Charles P Roman, a young advertising executive. They agreed that Angelo would concentrate on projecting his own body, making public appearances, demonstrating his equipment and performing stunts, while Charles diverted his focus to the business side of the partnership.

Charles Atlas Ltd was incorporated in 1929. Roman coined the name ‘Dynamic Tension’ to describe the Atlas method and a year later wrote the copy for the company’s most famous ad, depicting a young man who follows the Atlas method and is able to avenge his humiliation at the hands of a beach bully who kicks sand in his face.

The business grew and prospered Charles Atlas became recognized as one of the world’s foremost bodybuilding experts.  Baseball legend Joe di Maggio and boxer Rocky Marciano were among sportsmen who endorsed his products.

He retired in 1970, selling his share of the business to Roman and settling for a quiet life in Long Island, where he bought a house at Point Lookout, overlooking the ocean.  He ran along the beach each day and continued to exercise.  Married with two children, he died at the age of 80 after suffering a heart attack.

The single surviving tower of the town's castle sits
atop one of Acri's two hills

Travel tip:

Acri is a town of around 21,000 inhabitants situated close to the Sila National Park and the beautiful Lago Cicita in the province of Cosenza.  It has suffered a number of earthquakes over the centuries and a lot of its buildings are of relatively recent construction yet many historic buildings survive, including the medieval church of Santa Maria Maggiore, which was rebuilt in the 17th century.  On top of one of its two hills is the single remaining tower of a medieval castle.

Hotels in Cosenza from Hotels.com

Travel tip:

Cosenza, a city with an urban area in which more than 250,000 people live, combines a no-nonsense modern city with a small and atmospheric historic town built on a hill. The pedestrianized centre of the new city has sculptures by the likes of Dalí, De Chirico and Pietro Consagra. The old town boasts the 13th century Castello Svevo, built on the site of a Saracen fortification, which hosted the wedding of Louis III of Naples and Margaret of Savoy but which the Bourbons used as a prison. 

(Photo of Dawn and Glory statue by Eden, Janine and Jim - CC BY 2.0)
(Photo of Acri by Explorer at Italian Wikipedia - CC BY-SA 3.0)

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Franco Corelli - 'Prince of Tenors'

Self-taught singer who wowed New York

Franco Corelli's movie star looks added to
the quality of his voice

The great Italian tenor Franco Corelli died in Milan on this day in 2003 aged 82 after suffering heart problems.

Corelli was renowned for the power and vibrancy of his voice, described by some as generating a 'white heat' on the stage when he performed.  In a career spanning more than a quarter of a century he mastered all the major tenor roles and appeared at the greatest opera theatres in the world.

He was a fixture at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, where he performed 19 roles over 15 seasons in some 365 appearances.  As well as possessing outstanding vocal range, he used his natural assets – he stood 6ft 1ins tall and weighed 200lbs – to develop a charismatic stage presence.

Blessed with movie star looks, he had the appearance of an opera-singing Errol Flynn. He was nicknamed the 'Prince of Tenors'.

Corelli was born in 1921 in Ancona on Italy’s Adriatic coast, in a house just yards from the shore.
His father was a shipbuilder for the Italian navy and as he neared adulthood it seemed that Corelli’s destiny was to pursue the same profession. He obtained a place at Bologna University to study naval engineering.

It was while he was in Bologna that a friend dared him to enter a singing competition. He did not win but the judges were impressed enough with his voice to tell him that with proper training he could have a career as a professional singer if he wanted.

Clearly, he had inherited some of the talent of his grandfather, Augusto, who had been an operatic tenor, and two uncles, who had both been in the chorus of the Teatro delle Muse in Ancona.

Mario del Monaco's style
influenced Corelli

Corelli entered the Conservatory of Pesaro but despite the expert coaching he received felt that the experience made his voice worse rather than better. After finding himself unable to reach notes that were previously within his capabilities, he decided he would be better off developing his own technique and declared voice teachers to be ‘dangerous people.’

Although he took advice from the voice coach of another great tenor, Mario del Monaco, he was essentially self taught, identifying Enrico Caruso, Giacomo Lauri-Volpi and Beniamino Gigli among a small group of singers he chose to study.

He developed a vocal power similar to that enjoyed by Del Monaco and after winning a competition at the Maggio Musicale festival in Florence made his opera debut at Spoleto in 1951 as Don Jose in Carmen.

By 1954 he was performing opposite Maria Callas at Teatro alla Scala in Milan, gaining the respect of the brilliant soprano as a co-star whose acting ability matched hers.  His debut at the Met came in 1961 in a production of Verdi’s Il Trovatore.

Not all critics were fans. Like Del Monaco, he was accused of sacrificing finesse for power and found some opera writers expressed their disapproval after his debut at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden in 1957, when in Act II of Puccini’s Tosca he stretched Cavaradossi’s defiant cry of ‘Vittoria!’ to a full 12 seconds to show how good he was at holding a high note. The audience was in raptures but critics panned him for showing off.

Watch Franco Corelli sing the aria E Lucevan le stelle from Tosca

Later in his career, it surprised no one that he should have behaved in such a way as he developed a reputation as someone who had a sharp sense of his own importance.

Prone to temperamental outbursts, he was said to be incensed, during a Met production of Puccini’s Turandot in Boston, when the Swedish soprano Birgit Nilsson held a high ‘C’ for longer than he had. Later in the performance, Ms Nilsson claimed he took the opportunity presented by a scene in which he was required to plant a stage kiss her cheek to bite her on the neck, something Corelli denied but his co-star insisted was true.

Franco Corelli as he appeared in the title
role in Umberto Giordano's Andrea Chénier

On another occasion at Teatro San Carlo in Naples he reacted to being heckled from a third-tier box by leaving the stage, in full costume as Manrico in Il Trovatore, climbing three flights of stairs and breaking down the locked door of the box with his shoulder, then waving his costume sword at the terrified occupant. It took the intervention of two ushers to restrain him.

Ahead of any performance he was nervous and ritualistic, making it a contractual obligation on the part of the theatre to prepare him steak tartare with lemon juice and raw garlic, which he consumed immediately before going on stage with no regard for the sensitivities of his leading lady, whatever her stature. On the other hand, he neither smoked nor drank alcohol at any time.

Away from performing, he had a taste for the high life. He modelled clothes for Town and Country magazine and had a passion for expensive cars and cameras. At one point during his years of fame in America he had a Jaguar, an Alfa Romeo Giulietta, a Lincoln Continental and a Cadillac in his garage and he could pick from any one of 12 cameras when he decided he wanted a day to indulge his interest in photography.

In 1958 he met Loretta di Lelio backstage at the Rome Opera House and they married, at which point the fledgling soprano gave up her career to become his secretary, business manager, agent and translator.  A forceful negotiator, she won him many lucrative contracts.

Corelli was at his peak between 1950 and 1970, after which he began to scale back his appearances sharply. He retired in 1976, having decided his vocal powers were beginning to decline and unwilling to expose his ego to the harsh criticisms that he knew would come if he overstayed his welcome.
It was a wise decision, ensuring his place among the greats of opera would be preserved.

An aerial view of the Adriatic port of Ancona 

Travel tip:

Ancona is the capital of the Marche region. A port city of more than 100,000 inhabitants, it is known for its beaches, such as the Spiaggia del Passetto, and for the 12th century Cathedral of San Ciriaco, which sits on a hilltop. The Fontana del Calamo, with bronze masks of mythic figures, is a feature in the city centre. On opposite sides of the port are the ancient  Arch of Trajan and the 18th century quarantine station, the Lazzaretto.


Travel tip:

The ancient city of Spoleto in Umbria, where Corelli made his stage debut, is famous for its Festival dei Due Mondi (Festival of the Two Worlds), founded in 1958, which is held annually in late June-early July. It has developed into one of Italy’s most important cultural events, with a three-week schedule of music, theatre and dance performances.


More reading:

Tito Gobbi - baritone who found fame on screen and stage

Luciano Pavarotti - maestro remembered as 'King of the Hugh Cs'

Andrea Bocelli - today's modern superstar tenor

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Eros Ramazzotti - singer-songwriter

Best-selling Italian star is 53 today

Eros Ramazzotti on stage in 2015

The best-selling Italian singer and songwriter Eros Ramazzotti was born on this day in 1963 in Rome.

Ramazzotti, whose style has developed from pure pop to a contemporary soft rock genre with elements of classical crossover, has sold around 65 million records in a career spanning almost 35 years, putting him among the top 12 Italian recording artists of all time.

He is popular throughout Europe and in Spanish-speaking countries in South America, so much so that he records most of his albums in Spanish as well as Italian.

Among his 13 studio albums, three compilations and six live albums, 12 have reached No 1 in the Italian charts and 10 in the Swiss charts.  In addition, Ramazzotti has had No 1s in Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Sweden.

Twice - with 9 in 2003 and e2 in 2007 – he sold more records in that year in Italy than any other artist.

Ramazzotti's distinctive voice is
part of his appeal

Other major selling albums have been In ogni senso, Tutte storie, Dove c'è musica, Stilelibero and Calma apparente.

His appeal is said to stem from his unique voice - a vibrant, slightly nasal tenor – his energetic delivery of catchy pop numbers and the passion he brings to often semi-autobiographical ballads, a genre very popular with Italian audiences who like songs with which they can identify.

Ramazzotti was born in Cinecittà Est, a suburb of Rome that takes its name from the huge film studio complex that was built in the area in the 1930s and subsequently became the hub of the Italian movie industry.

His parents, Rodolfo and Raffaela, named him Eros after the Greek god of love. They were not wealthy but bought him a guitar when he was seven and he began to write songs with his father, who played the piano, in his teens. 

Owing to a lack of musical background, his application to study at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, the pre-eminent music conservatory in Rome, was declined and his first serious work was as a bookkeeper.

Occasionally, he appeared as an extra in films at Cinecittà, but his ambition was to be a pop star.

Listen to Eros Ramazzotti perform one of his biggest hits Più Bella Cosa

His talent became clear in 1981 when he took part in a music contest, Voci Nuove di Castrocaro (New Voices of Castrocaro Terme) with the song "Rock 80".  Although the contest was won by Zucchero and the female singer Fiordaliso, Ramazzotti reached the final and earned his first recording contract with a studio in Milan, moving to the northern city soon afterwards. 

His first single was not particularly successful but then his song "Terra promessa" (Promised Land) won the Newcomers' category at the 1984 Sanremo Festival. 

In 1985, Ramazzotti took part in the Sanremo Festival again with the song "Una storia importante" (An Important Story), taken from his debut album Cuori agitati (Troubled Hearts). He finished only sixth but the song was released as a single and became a hit in many European countries. 

Eros Ramazzotti on stage in Alicante, Spain

His second album Nuovi eroi (New Heroes), released in 1986, gave him his first No 1 and the single from the album, "Adesso tu" (Now You) won Sanremo outright. 

Since then, his career has been one of almost unremitting success, with other performers eager to share the spotlight. Ramazzotti has filled large venues performing alongside such stars as Cher, Tina Turner, Andrea Bocelli, Patsy Kensit, Anastacia, Joe Cocker, Luciano Pavarotti and Laura Pausini among others. 

Away from the stage and studio, Ramazzotti has led a very public private life.

In 1998 he married the Swiss model and TV presenter, Michelle Hunziker, with whom he had already had a child, Aurora Sophie. His hit song "Più bella cosa"(The best thing) was dedicated to Michelle, the follow-up single "L’aurora" (The aurora) to his daughter. They were considered the perfect couple but their marriage ended in divorce and a custody battle that the tabloids lapped up. 

In June 2014 Ramazzotti married Italian model and actress Marica Pellegrinelli, who is 24 years’ his junior.  They have a daughter, five-year-old Raffaela Maria, and a son, Gabrio Tullio, aged 18 months. 

A football fan, despite his links with Rome and Milan he supports the Turin club, Juventus.

The Cinecittà film studio complex is near Ramazzotti's
childhood home in the Rome suburbs

Travel tip:

Cinecittà in Rome is the largest film studio in Europe, spreading over an area of 100 acres with  22 stages and 300 dressing rooms. Situated six miles south of the city centre, it is the hub of the Italian film industry. 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.

Travel tip:

Eros Ramazzotti’s first record company was based close to the commercial heart of Milan in Via della Spiga, which forms part of the so-called Fashion Quadrilateral, bordered by Via Monte Napoleone, Via Manzoni, Via Sant'Andrea and Corso Venezia.  Via della Spiga is home to many designer stores.

More reading:

The sweet success of Zucchero - father of Italian Blues

Laura Pausini - singing star who outsells Ramazzotti and Zucchero

Ligabue - record-breaking rock star

Patty Pravo - 50s star still performing today

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Roberto Benigni - Oscar winner

How Life is Beautiful made Tuscan actor and director famous

Roberto Benigni

Roberto Benigni, whose performance in the 1997 film Life is Beautiful won him an Oscar for Best Actor, was born on this day in 1952 in rural Tuscany, around 20km south of Arezzo.

The Academy Award, for which he beat off strong competition from Nick Nolte (Affliction) and Tom Hanks (Saving Private Ryan) among others, put him in the company of Anna Magnani (1955) and Sophia Loren (1961) as one of just three Italian winners of best actor or actress.

Benigni, who also directed Life is Beautiful, had won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film earlier in the awards ceremony, which delighted him so much he famously clambered on to the back of the seats of audience members in the row in front of his to lead the applause before stepping up to the stage to receive the award from Sophia Loren.

When Helen Hunt called out his name for Best Actor - the first since Loren to win the most coveted prize with a foreign language film - he began his acceptance speech by apologizing for having "used up all my English", before proceeding to deliver another joyously emotional expression of gratitude.

Benigni was born in the hamlet of Manciano la Misericordia, near the walled town of Castiglion Fiorentino.  His family moved when he was six years old to Vergaio, a village near Prato, to which he made reference in his speech, thanking his parents, Luigi and Isolina, for "the gift of poverty", despite which he had a happy childhood and believes shaped his character and made him appreciate his good fortune all the more.

Roberto Benigni with his wife
and co-star, Nicoletta Braschi

He based Life is Beautiful, the story of a Jewish Italian bookshop owner who uses his comic imagination to shield his son from the horrors of internment in a Nazi concentration camp, in part on the experiences of his father, who spent almost three years in the Belsen concentration camp in Germany.

Written in collaboration with Vincenzo Cerami, the film was attacked by some critics for presenting an unrealistic picture of the Holocaust which contained too little suffering, and suggested that "laughing at everything" was disrespectful to the millions of victims.

However, others praised Benigni for having the artistic daring and skill to create such a sensitive comedy against a background of dark, unparalleled tragedy.

Before the huge fame the movie brought him, Benigni, who was raised as a Catholic and was an altar boy in his local church, had enjoyed relatively modest success in his acting and directing career.

After studying initially to become a priest, a path he abandoned after the school he attended in Florence was damaged in the floods of 1966, he developed a fascination with a circus that was playing near his home and was offered work as a magician's assistant.

He had his first taste of theatre in Prato before moving to Rome, where he appeared in avant-garde theatre and became popular for his improvisation of epic poems, such as those of Ludovico Ariosto, Edmund Spenser and Dante Alighieri.

It was in Rome that he met Giuseppe Bertolucci - brother of Bernardo - who cast him in a film entitled Berlinguer, I love You, that appealed to his Communist sympathies.  Enrico Berlinguer was the leader of the Italian Communist Party.

See Roberto Benigni's acceptance speech for Best Foreign Language Film Oscar

He appeared in a number of TV shows directed by Renzo Arbore, one of which was banned by the censors, and worked on films with Bernardo Bertolucci and Federico Fellini.

The first of his nine films as a director was Tu mi turbi (You disturb me), a comedy that satirizes religion and the banking system.  He also starred in the film opposite Nicoletta Braschi, an actress from Cesena with whom he became romantically involved.  They have been married since 1991.  Braschi also appears in Life is Beautiful as the wife of Benigni's character.

Benigni's two films after Life is Beautiful - Pinocchio and The Tiger and the Snow - played well with home audiences but were less well received outside Italy and in the 11 years since the latter he has not made another film, although he hinted recently that he has a new project in mind.

Roberto Benigni on stage in his touring
one-man show, TuttiDante

He has remained successful on stage and television with his 90-minute one-man show TuttiDante, in which he has returned to his love of improvisatory poetry - a particularly Tuscan art form for which his father was an enthusiast.

During the show, Benigni combines current events with his memories of the past in a passionate interpretation of Dante's Divine Comedy.

No stranger to controversy, apart from his role in the Abore TV show that was taken off the air, he attracted headlines for appearing to call Pope John Paul II by an impolite name, for lifting a startled Enrico Berlinguer off his feet in an embrace at a Communist rally, and then for gatecrashing a TV news bulletin reporting on a protest against Silvio Berlusconi in which he had taken part, removing his shirt, draping it around the shoulders if the presenter and declaring (falsely) that Berlusconi had resigned.

Travel tip:

Arezzo, where much of Life is Beautiful is filmed, is a city in eastern Tuscany famous among other things for the frescoes of the artist, Piero della Francesco, in the 13th century church of San Francesco.  The Legend of the True Cross, painted between 1452 and 1466, is considered to be one of Italy’s greatest fresco cycles.  Arezzo is also the birthplace of the 14th century Renaissance poet, Francesco Petrarca, widely known by his English name, Petrarch.

The view through one of the archways
in Giorgio Vasari's loggia

Travel tip:

Apart from its 13th century walls, the Tuscan hill town of Castiglion Fiorentino, of which Manciano la Misericordia, Benigni's birthplace, is a frazione (parish), is notable for a handsome nine-arch loggia designed by the 16th century artist and architect, Giorgio Vasari, along one side of the Piazza del Municipio, which offers a beautiful vista looking out over the Val di Chio below the town.  Vasari, who worked for the Medici family in Florence, designed the loggia at the Palazzo degli Uffizi and the Vasari Corridor, which connects the Uffizi with the Medici residence across the River Arno at Palazzo Pitti and includes the covered Ponte Vecchio bridge.

More reading:

Death of brilliant actress Anna Magnani shocked her friends

La Dolce Vita and the cinematic legacy of Federico Fellini

Dante's Divine Comedy 'the greatest work of Italian literature'

(Top photo of Benigni by Gorup de Besanez CC BY-SA 4.0)
(Second photo of Benigni by Georges Biard CC BY-SA 3.0)
(Photo of Vasari's loggia view by Silviapitt CC BY-SA 3.0)

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