Santo Versace - businessman and politician

Entrepreneurial brain behind Versace fashion empire

Santo Versace's business skills lay
behind the brand's success

Santo Versace, sometime politician and the business brain behind Italy's world famous luxury fashion label, was born on this day in 1944 in Reggio Calabria.

Along with his brother and sister, Gianni and Donatella, Santo grew up in Italy's southernmost major city, which is situated right on the "toe" of the Italian peninsula and separated from the island of Sicily by barely 10km of the Strait of Messina.

Unlike his younger siblings, who were inspired by their mother, Francesca, a dressmaker who owned a small clothes shop, to become designers, Santo took after their father, Antonio, a coal merchant who in time became an interior decorator, in wishing to become a business entrepreneur.

He helped his father hump sacks of coal while still a child and learned the basics of running a business as a teenager before attending the University of Messina, from which he graduated in 1968 with a degree in economics.

At first, Santo worked in banking for Credito Italiano in Reggio Calabria before switching to teaching economics and geography to high school students. In 1972, after completing his military service, he set up as an accountant and management consultant in Reggio Calabria.

By this time, Gianni and Donatella were beginning to attract attention in the fashion world and when Gianni was invited to work in Milan in the mid-70s, Santo decided to follow him and base himself in the northern city.

Versace's current flagship Milan store is in the
prestigious Via Monte Napoleone

It was he who encouraged Gianni to turn his talent into a business and the company Gianna Versace Donna was launched in 1977, opening their first Milan boutique in Via della Spiga the following year.

Santo was chief executive officer from the outset, a position he retained until 2004.  While his siblings concentrated on design, he brought his business skills to bear in the areas of communication, organization, productivity, and quality. He oversaw sales, distribution, production and finance and gained a reputation as one of the fashion industry's most able and well-respected business people.

His first involvement in politics was at a fashion industry level. In 1992, he co-founded the Association of Italian High-Quality Enterprises and from 1998 to 1999 was president of the National Chamber for Italian Fashion, which aims to support and the develop Italian fashion.  Even beyond his own business, he would always support initiatives to promote Italian brands.

Santo's personality and skill as a speaker did not go unnoticed and he was invited by former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi to run for office in 2008 as a member of Berlusconi's new party, Il Popolo della Libertà - The People of Freedom.  He was elected to the Chamber of Deputies as member for Calabria and Berlusconi won a second term in office after forming a coalition with the Lega Nord and the Sicilian Movement for Autonomy.

However, it was an uneasy alliance. Friends considered Santo too left of centre to sit comfortably in a Berlusconi government and he quit the party in 2011 over the coalition's decision to back a mafia-tainted cabinet minister, describing his decision as "my present for Berlusconi” in a reference to the media tycoon's upcoming 75th birthday.

Donatella and Gianni Versace pictured
in around 1990

He initially joined the Allianza per la Libertà Nationale and subsequently aligned himself with Stop the Decline, a small party formed by a group of economists with the aim of cutting Italy's national debt by 20 per cent within five years.  Since 2012, he has been part of the Gruppo Misto, a group that comprises politicians of no party affiliation.

Divorced from his first wife, Cristiana, Santo is now married to Francesca De Stefano, a lawyer.  Francesca Versace, one of his children from his first marriage, is a fashion designer herself, based in London.

Santo, of course, has known tragedy in his private life.  The murder of Gianni Versace in Miami Beach in 1997 left him with only one surviving sibling from a family of four children, his older sister, known as Tina, having died when he was a child from complications relating to a tetanus infection.

Away from fashion and politics, he has been a financial supporter of Viola Reggio Calabria Basketball, and has been chairman of Operation Smile Italy Onlus, an association of doctors and volunteers which deals with children with facial deformities in 70 countries around the world.

A sweeping waterfront is a feature of modern day Reggio
 Calabria, which had to be rebuilt after the 1908 earthquake

Travel tip:

For a port city with a population of 200,000 people in a metropolitan area of more than half a million residents, Reggio Calabria is a surprisingly elegant and pleasant place to visit, its attractiveness owing much to the careful rebuilding programme undergone after a devastating earthquake in 1908, which destroyed most of its historical centre and inflicted similarly catastrophic damage on Messina, across the water in Sicily. Such remains as were salvageable, including many of Greek origin, are preserved in some impressive museums. The rebuilt city featured many Liberty style buildings and the seafront is particularly panoramic.

Hotels in Reggio Calabria from Hotels.com


Travel tip:

The Via della Spiga, where the first Versace shop opened in 1977, is one of Milan's top shopping streets, forming the north-east boundary of the city's fashion quarter, of which Via Manzoni, Via Monte Napoleone and Corso Venezia form the other borders.  It is one of Milan city centre's few streets restricted to pedestrians only.  Details of the stores with premises on Via della Spiga can be found at the Amici Di Via della Spiga website.

Hotels in Milan from Expedia

More reading:

How former army medic Giorgio Armani became a fashion icon

Short life and tragic death of Gianni Versace

How horses inspired the world's most coveted shoes and handbags

Also on this day:

1945: The death of Fiat founder Giovanni Agnelli

(Picture credits: Versace shop by Bahar via Wikimedia Commons)

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Frankie Dettori - champion jockey

Milan-born horseman among all-time greats

Frankie Dettori goes to post in the 2015 Derby on Golden
Horn, which he considers the best horse he has ridden

Lanfranco "Frankie" Dettori, the three-times British champion jockey, was born on this day in 1970 in Milan.

As well as winning the UK jockeys' title in 1994 and 1995 and again in 2004, Dettori has won more than 500 Group Races around the world, including 16 British Classics.

He won his first Classic in 1994 on Balanchine in the Oaks, the St Leger in 1995 on Classic Cliche, the 2,000 Guineas in 1996 on Mark of Esteem and the 1,000 Guineas in 1998 on Cape Verdi, finally completing the set at the 15th attempt when Authorized won the Derby at Epsom in 2007.

Dettori won the Derby for a second time in 2015 on Golden Horn, whom he rates the best horse he has ever ridden.

English-bred and owned by the diamond dealer Anthony Oppenheimer, Golden Horn won the Derby, the Eclipse Stakes, the Irish Champion Stakes and the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe for Wiltshire trainer John Gosden during the 2015 season, each time with Dettori in the saddle.

Apart from his big-race successes, which also include 24 Group Race wins in Italy and all of the Irish Classics, Dettori is best known for his unprecedented and so-far unequalled achievement of riding the winners of all seven races on a single day at Ascot in 1996.

Frankie Dettori moved to England
when he was 15 years old

Dettori's so-called Magnificent Seven including the prestigious Queen Elizabeth II Stakes, which he won on his 2,000 Guineas hero Mark of Esteem.  Most of his winners started as favourite or second favourite but his Diadem Stakes winner Diffident was a 12-1 shot, which inflated the cumulative odds for the seven-timer to 25,051-1, enabling one punter who had predicated that Dettori would go through the card to collect more than £500,000 in winnings.

Dettori celebrated his final win on Fujiyama Crest by dismounting with the flying leap that was to become his hallmark, standing up in the stirrups before jumping sideways off the horse to land on his feet.

Dettori was born into horse racing.  His Sardinian father, Gianfranco, was 13 times champion jockey in Italy, as well as riding successfully in Britain, where he won the 2,000 Guineas in 1975 and 1976.  Frankie's dream was to follow his father into the profession and he left school at 13 to become a stable boy and apprentice jockey.

He rode his first winner at Turin in November 1986 but by that time had become apprenticed to the Italian trainer Luca Cumani at Newmarket and rode his first winner on British soil when Lizzie Hare triumphed at Goodwood in 1987.

Three years later he became the first teenager since Lester Piggott to ride 100 winners in one season.

Luca Cumani, the Italian trainer who gave
Dettori his first job in England

In recent years, Dettori's career has suffered a number of setbacks.  In September 2012 he lost his position as retained jockey for the powerful Arab-owned Godolphin Stable, for whom he had enjoyed considerable success over 18 years, and soon afterwards tested positive for a recreational drug, which led to him being banned for six months.

It was not the first time he had attracted headlines for drug use, having admitted in a television interview that he had regularly taken diuretics and laxatives that were subsequently banned in order to keep his weight off.

Yet Dettori, who had bounced back once before after being injured in a light aircraft crash in 2000, rebuilt his career and reputation, securing an agreement to ride for the powerful Qatar-based Al Shaqab Racing.

In 2016, at 45 years old, became only the sixth jockey to ride 3,000 winners in Britain, which put him in the company of Sir Gordon Richards, Doug Smith, Lester Piggott, Pat Eddery and Willie Carson.

After Predilection - like Golden Horn, trained by John Gosden - took him to the milestone at Newmarket in August, he again celebrated with his flying dismount.

Away from racing, Dettori, who lives in the village of Stetchworth, near Newmarket, with his wife, Catherine, and their four children, owns a number of restaurants in London and Dubai.  He supports Arsenal football club and has taken part in the reality TV show, Celebrity Big Brother.

The magnificent Palazzina di Caccia of Stupingi is close
 to the race track in Turin where Dettori rode his first winner

Travel tip:

Turin's horse racing track, the Ippodromo Stupinigi or Ippodromo di Vinovo, is close to the historic Palazzina di caccia of Stupinigi, which was built in 1729 as a hunting lodge for Victor Amadeus II, King of Sardinia, as one of the Royal Residences of the House of Savoy.  The house, overlooking a large expanse of park land and surrounded by ornate gardens, is built around a tall central dome and has 137 rooms and 17 balconies.  In 1773, it was the venue for the wedding of Maria Teresa, Princess of Savoy, and Charles Philippe, Count of Artois and the future Charles X of France.

Hotels in Turin by Expedia

Travel tip:

Italy's most valuable and prestigious horse race, the Derby Italiano, takes place at the Ippodromo Capannelle, a racecourse in the southern suburbs of Rome, between the Cinecittà district and Ciampino, which is home to the city's second international airport.  There is a train service to Capannelle direct from Roma Termini station, with a journey time of eight minutes.

Hotels in Rome by Hotels.com

More reading:

The Palio di Siena - Italy's most famous horse race

Luigi Beccali - winner of Italy's first Olympic track gold

Bruno Ruffo - Italy's first champion on two wheels

Also on this day:

1966: Spaghetti western The Good, The Bad and The Ugly goes on general release

(Picture credits: Golden Horn by monkeywing; Dettori on horse by Paul Friel; Palazzini di Caccia by Paolobon; all via Wikimedia commons)


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Errico Malatesta - anarchist

Middle-class boy who became notorious revolutionary

Errico Malatesta in a picture taken in 1890

Errico Malatesta, one of the most prominent figures in the anarchist movement that flourished in Italy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, was born on this day in 1853 in the province of Caserta, in what is now Campania.

A committed revolutionary who was arrested for the first time at the age of 14, he spent more than 10 years of his life in prison and about 35 years in exile.

Apart from his activity in his own country, Malatesta helped organize anarchist revolutionary groups in several European countries, as well as in Egypt, and in North and South America, including Argentina, where he helped bakers form the country's first militant workers' union.

Born into a family of middle-class landowners in Santa Maria Capua Vetere in what was then the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, Malatesta was arrested aged 14 for sending an "insolent and threatening letter" to King Victor Emmanuel II.

Although he would become closely associated with the Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin, Malatesta drew his first inspiration from Giuseppe Mazzini, the Italian revolutionary who was a driving force in the Risorgimento movement that culminated in the unification of Italy in 1871.

He studied medicine at Naples University until he was expelled in 1871 for taking part in a demonstration, after which he joined the Naples section of the International Workingmen's Association, A year later, met Bakunin for the first time at a congress of international socialist, communist and anarchist groups in Switzerland.

Giuseppe Mazzini was an early
inspiration for Malatesta

Malatesta's ideals were based on the abolition of all government and all organisations that seek to create and impose laws, plus the end of private ownership of land, raw materials and work tools.  He proposed that societies function through the establishment of collective associations of producers and consumers working for the common interest and that patriotic nationalism and rivalries between countries be abolished by the removal of international borders.

To achieve these aims, however, required the overthrow of state rule and capitalism, and Malatesta fervently believed this would be best achieved by armed insurrection, which is why he spent much of his life trying not always successfully to avoid arrest.

After being imprisoned twice for spreading internationalist propaganda, Malatesta joined with fellow Italian anarchist Carlo Cafiero and the Russian Sergius Stepniak and others 1877 in leading an insurrection in the province of Benevento in Campania, which briefly gave them control of two villages, Letino and Gallo, and was greeted with approval by many residents, especially when they made a bonfire of taxation records.

However, they were soon captured by government troops and held in custody for 16 months.  By the time Malatesta was released the state's attitude to anarchism had hardened, particularly after an assassination attempt against King Umberto 1, and after a year of invasive surveillance he decided to live in exile.

He spent time in Egypt, Switzerland, Romania and France before establishing a home in London in 1881, to which he would periodically return for the next 40 years.

Rioters mounted barricades when troops were sent
to quell the food riots in Milan in the late 1890s

His periods in Italy were usually terminated by arrest, notably in 1898 when he was drawn to join a growing anarchist movement among dockworkers in Ancona.  During street fights, he was quickly identified by police and spent much of 1898 and 1899 in jail, unable to participate in a period of prolonged social upheaval in Italy characterised by food riots, a massacre of demonstrators by troops in Milan and the beginnings of Fascism.

Malatesta was ultimately sent to a prison on the island of Lampedusa, but escaped and returned to London, where he lived a relatively quiet life as an electrician but gained notoriety by supplying oxyacetylene cutting equipment to a gang of Latvian revolutionaries so that they could break into the safe at a jewellers in Houndsditch.

The Houndsditch robbery, which resulted in the deaths of three policemen, led indirectly to the Siege of Sidney Street, where two of the robbers were tracked down and eventually killed at a house in Stepney.  Malatesta's cutting gear is on permanent display at the City of London Police Museum.

After the First World War, Malatesta returned to Italy for the final time. Soon arrested and imprisones again, he was released just before the Fascists came to power. However, Malatesta then defied Mussolini's ban on independent newspapers by publishing the journal Pensiero e Volontà - Thought and Will.  The publication was closed and Malatesta placed under house arrest.

He spent his final years earning a living as an electrician. He died in Rome from bronchial pneumonia in July, 1932, aged 78.

The remains of the Roman amphitheatre at Santa Maria
Capua Vetere, where Malatesta was born

Travel tip:

Santa Maria Capua Vetere, by which the oldest part of the city of Capua, north of Naples, is known, is notable for being the site of the second largest of all known Roman amphitheatres, with a length of 170 metres (560ft) and a width of 140m (460ft). Only the Colosseum in Rome (188m by 156m) is bigger.  Built in the time of Augustus, restored by Hadrian and dedicated by Antoninus Pius, the amphitheatre originally had 80 Doric arcades of four stories each, but only two arches now remain.  The interior is better preserved and beneath the arena is a complex system of subterranean passages.


Travel tip:

The island of Lampedusa, where Malatesta was imprisoned before escaping to London in 1899, is the southernmost part of Italy. It is part of the Sicilian province of Agrigento, although the nearest landfall is Tunisia, about 113km (70 miles) away. It has a historic claim to be part of Malta when that island was a British colony.  Lampedusa's Rabbit Beach was once voted as the world's best beach by the travel website, Tripadvisor. In recent years, Lampedusa has become a primary European entry point for migrants from Africa.

More reading:

Giuseppe Mazzini - hero of the Risorgimento

How Republican activist Giovanni Passannante tried to kill Umberto I

Giuseppe Pinelli - anarchist whose 'accidental death' inspired Dario Fo play

Also on this day:

1784: Birth of Maria Antonia, Neapolitan princess who lived sad, short life

(Photo of amphitheatre by Nicolo d'Orta via Wikimedia Commons)

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Carlo Gozzi – playwright

Noble Venetian who fought to preserve commedia dell’arte

Carlo Gozzi - a portrait by an
unknown artist

Count Carlo Gozzi, the poet and playwright, was born on this day in 1720 in Venice.

He was a staunch defender of the traditional Italian commedia dell’arte form of drama and his plays were admired throughout Europe.

Commedia dell’arte was a theatrical form that used improvised dialogue and a cast of masked, colourful stock characters such as Arlecchino, Colombina and Pulcinella.

Gozzi was against the dramatic innovations made by writers such as Pietro Chiari and Carlo Goldoni. He attacked Goldoni in a satirical poem and then wrote a play, L’amore delle tre melarance - The Love of Three Oranges - in which he portrayed Goldoni as a magician and Chiari as a wicked fairy.

The play was first performed by commedia dell’arte actors, who had been out of work due to the dwindling interest in the genre following the innovations of Goldoni and Chiari. It was a great success and revived the fortunes of the company of actors.

Having been born into a noble but poor family, Gozzi initially had to go into the army to make a living because his parents could not support him. When he returned to Venice, he joined the Accademia dei Granelleschi, a group determined to preserve Italian literature from being corrupted by foreign influences.

Gabriel Bella's painting of the stage at the Teatro san Samuele

His personal crusade was to revive traditional commedia dell’arte and after the success of The Love of the Three Oranges, Gozzi wrote nine fiabe, literally fairy tales.

Considered outstanding were Il re cervo - the King Stag - Turandot, and La donna serpente - the Snake Woman - which were all performed in 1762, and L’augellin belvedere - the Pretty Little Green Bird - performed in 1765.

Gozzi’s fiabe were popular, both in Italy and other countries in Europe, and drew influences from commedia dell’arte, which led to a revival of interest in the genre and earned him the title of ‘the saviour of commedia dell arte’.

Gozzi’s Turandot was first performed at the Teatro San Samuele in Venice in January 1762.

Later, in Germany, the playwright Schiller turned Turandot into a serious play and it was used later as the basis for operas by Ferruccio Busoni and Giacomo Puccini. The Love of the Three Oranges also provided the basis for an opera by Sergey Prokofiev.

Gozzi wrote his authobiography, Memorie inutile - Useless Memories - in 1797.

He died in Venice in 1806 at the age of 85 and was buried in the Church of San Cassiano in the San Polo district of the city.

Travel tip:

Teatro San Samuele, where Gozzi’s Turandot was first performed, was an opera house and theatre at the Rio del Duca, between San Samuele and Campo Santo Stefano. It was first opened in 1656 in Venice and the playwright Carlo Goldoni was the theatre’s director between 1737 and 1741. The theatre was destroyed by fire in 1747 but then rebuilt and Gozzi’s play, Turandot, was performed in the new structure in 1762. It remained a theatre until the building was demolished in 1894. San Samuele is in the San Marco sestiere and is a waterbus stop on the right bank of Canal Grande, travelling from San Marco towards the railway station, before you reach the Rialto.

Campo San Cassiano in Venice, with the church of
 the same name to the left

Travel tip:

The Church of San Cassiano in Venice, where Carlo Gozzi was buried, is in the San Polo sestiere and can be reached by getting off the waterbus at the San Stae stop on Canal Grande. The 14th century church, which is dedicated to San Cassian of Imola, is in Campo San Cassiano. Its highlight is the painting of The Crucifixion of Christ by Tintoretto, which the art critic John Ruskin described as ‘the finest example of a Crucifixion painting in Europe’. Campo San Cassiano is also where the world’s first public opera house, Teatro San Cassiano, was located until it had to be demolished in 1812 after several fires.

More reading:

Tommaso Albinoni - prolific Venetian composer famous for adagio in G minor

Titian - the colossus of Venetian Renaissance art

Dario Fo - playwright who put focus on corruption

Also on this day:

1466: Death of the great early Renaissance sculptor Donatello

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