Carlo Orelli – soldier

The last trench infantryman

Carlo Orelli with President Ciampi, at the
 awards ceremony on his 109th birthday

Carlo Orelli, the last surviving Italian soldier to have served at the start of Italy's involvement in the First World War, died on this day in 2005 at the age of 110.

Orelli had signed up for active duty at the age of 21 and joined the Austro-Hungarian front after Italy joined in the war on the side of Britain, France and Russia in May 1915.

He took part in combat operations near Trieste, experiencing the brutality of trench warfare and seeing many of his friends die violent deaths, but after receiving injuries to his leg and ear he spent the rest of the war in hospital.

Orelli was born in Perugia in 1894, but his family moved to Rome, where he was to spend most of the rest of his life living in the Garbatella district.

He came from a military background and had a grandfather who had helped to defend Perugia against Austrian mercenaries in 1849. His father had served in the Italian Abyssinian campaign in the 1880s and his elder brother had fought in Libya during the war between Italy and Turkey in 1911.

Orelli pictured in his Italian military
uniform in the First World War

The wounds Orelli suffered during a confrontation with Austrian soldiers ended his military career and he spent the rest of the war recovering from an infection in hospital.

When the war was over he resumed his occupation as a mechanic and got married and had six children.

Despite his opposition to Fascism, he was sent to Gaeta to direct artillery during World War II, but he returned to his job as a mechanic afterwards and continued to live in Garbatella.

In later life he often talked about his experiences in the First World War and implored people not to forget the sacrifice his fellow soldiers had made.

In 2003, on the occasion of his 109th birthday, he was made a Grand Officer in the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic by the President, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi.

Carlo Orelli in a TV documentary about his
life and wartime experiences

He became known as ‘The Last Infantrymen’, which was chosen as the title for his wartime memoirs when they were published.

After his death in 2005, he was talked about as ‘the last Italian World War I veteran,’ which was incorrect.

He was, in fact, Italy’s oldest survivor of the First World War, the last trench infantryman and the last survivor from the time Italy entered the war in 1915.

Travel tip:

Perugia, where Orelli was born, and which was defended by his grandfather against the Austrians, is the capital city of the region of Umbria. It has a history that goes back to Etruscan times, when it was one of the most powerful cities in the area. A stunning sight on a hilltop, Perugia is also home to two universities, the 14th century University of Perugia and another University for foreign students learning Italian.

The Centrale Montemartini museum is in the Garbatella
district of Rome, where Orelli spent most of his life

Travel tip:

The Garbatella district, where Orelli lived for most of his life, is to the south of the centre of Rome. It is now a lively area with an unusual museum, the Centrale Montemartini in Via Ostiense, a former electricity power plant that now houses hundreds of pieces of Roman sculpture. Nearby, in Piazzale San Paolo, is the Papal Basilica of St Paul Outside the Walls, one of Rome’s four ancient churches, which was founded by the Roman Emperor Constantine I over the burial place of St Paul. The site had been marked with a memorial by some of the apostle’s followers after his execution.

More reading:

Francesco Chiarello - combatant in both world wars who lived until 2008

How General Armando Diaz masterminded Italy's victory at the Battle of Vittorio Veneto

The Villa Giusti armistice and the end of the First World War in Italy

Also on this day:

1506: The founding of the Papal Swiss Guard


(Picture credit: Centrale Montemartini by Lalupa via Wikimedia Commons)

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Pietro Rava - World Cup winner

Defender was the last survivor from Azzurri of 1938

Pietro Rava, pictured at around the time
of his Juventus debut in 1935

Pietro Rava, who was the last survivor of Italy's 1938 World Cup-winning football team when he died in December 2006, was born on this day in 1916 at Cassine in Piedmont.

A powerful defender who could play at full back or in a central position, Rava won 30 caps for the national team between 1935 and 1946, finishing on the losing side only once and being made captain in 1940.

He was also a member of the Italy team that won the gold medal in the football competition at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin.  At club level, he spent most of his career with Juventus, forming a formidable defensive partnership with Alfredo Foni, alongside whom he also lined up in the national side.

Rava won a Championship medal in 1949-50, his final season at Juventus, although by then he had fallen out of favour with Jesse Carver, the Turin club's English coach, and made only six appearances, moving to Novara the following year.

At the time of his birth, Rava's family were living in Cassine, a small town near Alessandria, about 100km (62 miles) south-east of Turin, because of his father's job with a railway company.  Soon they moved back to the Piedmont capital, settling in the Crocetta district.

The Juventus team of 1940-41: Rava is second from the left
in the back row alongside Alfredo Foni, to his left

He studied to be a surveyor and although he had made his debut for Juventus in 1935 he was still attending university when he was selected for the Berlin Olympics.  Indeed, Italy were dubbed 'the team of students' by the Italian press.

Italy had won the World Cup on home turf in 1934 but none of the players in the Olympic team had any international experience.  It showed as they scraped past the United States 1-0 in their opening match and coach Vittorio Pozzo took them to task for failing to follow his instructions.

Much improvement followed.  Italy then beat Japan 8-0 and Norway 2-1 before defeating Austria 2-1 in the final.

Vittorio Pozzo coached the Azzurri to
two World Cups and Olympic gold

For Rava, Foni and the forwards Ugo Locatelli and Sergio Bertoni it was a winning start to a successful international career.  All four went to France in 1938 to defend Italy's World Cup crown. Three of them started the final against Hungary in Paris, which Italy won 4-2, with Bertoni among the reserves.

Rava was known not only for his physical power but for his strength of will and somewhat fiery temperament.  He was sent off in the opening match of the 1936 Olympics - the first Italian player to be expelled during a competitive match - and stunned officials at Juventus after the 1938 World Cup by effectively going on strike after the club refused his request for a pay rise.

He began his protest during a match at Modena, when at one point he stood with his arms folded rather than attempting to tackle an opponent and deliberately played poorly for the remainder of the match.  He was left out of the side for subsequent matches and stand-off between him and the club was ended only by the mediation of the Italian Federation, who convinced Rava to accept that the club was in straitened times following the sudden death of its benefactor, the FIAT heir Eduardo Agnelli.

Rava (left) moved to Alessandria,
where he played against Juventus

After helping Juventus win the Italian Cup in 1942, Rava interrupted his career to help the Italian war effort, volunteering to join the Russian campaign as an army official.  He returned after six months and was quickly reinstated in the first team.

His temperament surfaced again in 1946.  After being told that Juventus were planning to replace him with a young Croatian full back, he demanded a transfer and moved to Alessandria, his local team, who had been newly promoted to Serie A.

Appointed captain, he was so successful in helping Alessandria avoid relegation that he won back his place in the national team after an absence of four years and rejoined Juventus at a fee that gave little Alessandria a profit of four million lire.  In his second season back in Turin, Juventus won their first Scudetto for 15 years.

After his playing career ended in 1952, Rava spent 13 years in coaching, including a brief spell on the coaching staff at the national team's headquarters at Coverciano.  Away from football, his business interests included a sports shop in Turin and a driving school in Rivoli, just outside the city.

He survived a heart attack in 1998 but succumbed to Alzheimer's disease and died in 2006 at the age of 90, failing to recover from surgery for a broken leg after a fall.

This shot from the air shows how the Cittadella
di Alessandria remains almost unchangred

Travel tip:

The historic city of Alessandria became part of French territory after the army of Napoleon defeated the Austrians at the Battle of Marengo in 1800.  It was ruled by the Kingdom of Sardinia for many years and is notable for the Cittadella di Alessandria, a star-shaped fort and citadel built in the 18th century, which today it is one of the best preserved fortifications of that era, even down to the surrounding environment.  Situated across the Tanaro river to the north-west of the city, it has no buildings blocking the views of the ramparts, or a road bordering the ditches.

Hotels in Alessandria by Expedia

Travel tip:

Turin's Crocetta district is just to the south of the historic centre and contains some of the most exclusive addresses in the city, with many fine examples of neo-Gothic and Art Nouveau residential properties, particularly around Corso Trieste, Corso Trento and Corso Duca D’Aosta. In the northern part of Crocetta, the Galleria d’Arte Moderna stands in front a huge monument to Vittorio Emanuele II, perched on top of a 128-foot high column. Next to the gallery, in another elegant building, can be found the head office of Juventus.

Hotels in Turin by Hotels.com

More reading:

Marcello Lippi - coach of Italy's 2006 World Cup winners

How Paolo Rossi's goals won the 1982 World Cup for the Azzurri

Giuseppe Meazza - Italian football's first superstar

Also on this day:

1939: The birth of the chef Gennaro Contaldo






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Marco Simoncelli - motorcycle world champion

Young rider whose career ended in tragedy

Marco Simoncelli in 2010, busy signing
autographs for his many fans

The motorcycle racer Marco Simoncelli, who was part of an illustrious roll call of Italian world champions headed by Giacomo Agostini and Valentino Rossi, was born on this day in 1987 in Cattolica on the Adriatic coast.

Simoncelli, who was European 125cc champion in 2002 in only his second year of senior competition, became 250cc world champion in 2008 when he won six races riding for Gilera.

He had dreams of emulating Rossi, winner of the 250cc world title in 1999, in going on to be a force in the premier MotoGP category, in which the latter has been world champion seven times, just one fewer than Agostini's record eight titles.

But after stepping up to MotoGP in 2010, Simoncelli suffered a fatal crash at the Malaysian Grand Prix in October the following year, killed at the age of just 24.  On only the second lap of the Sepang circuit, he lost control of his Honda at a corner and appeared to be heading for the gravel run-off area but suddenly veered back across the congested track.

With the bike almost on its side, Simoncelli was struck by two other competitors.  One of them, with chilling irony, was Rossi, who was entirely blameless but unable to prevent his front wheel from striking his compatriot's head.

Simoncelli salutes his victory in Japan in
2008 on the way to the 250cc world title

Although born in Cattolica, Simoncelli's home town was really Coriano, which is situated about halfway between the coast and the Republic of San Marino.

His parents, Paolo and Rossella, ran an ice cream parlour.  Paolo was a fan of all motor sports but loved motorcycles in particular and when Marco took an interest his father was only too keen to indulge his son, buying him his first 50cc 'pocket bike' - a scaled down racing motorcycle, which he would ride in the fields near the family home.

Marco began to ride competitively at the age of nine and was Italian Minimoto champion two years running in 1999 and 2000, graduating to 125cc class in 2001 and becoming Italian champion in that category at the first attempt.  He began to compete in world championship races in 2002 and won his first GP in Spain in 2004.

Flamboyant, powerfully built and with his mop of hair worn in a distinctive Afro style, Simoncelli was an instantly recognisable figure who acquired an enthusiastic following of supporters, who knew him by his nickname of Sic or SuperSic.

Following the accident at Sepang, a devastated Rossi remained in Malaysia after other members of the MotoGP circus had left to prepare for the next race.  He accompanied Simoncelli's father and the rider's fiancée in returning the body to Italy and spent much of the following days with the family, of whom he was already a friend.

A huge crowd turned out for Simoncelli's funeral at the
church of Santa Maria Assunta in Coriano

Italy was deeply moved by Simoncelli's death.  On the day of the accident, a minute's silence was held before every Serie A football match on the instruction of Gianni Petrucci, president of the Italian National Olympic Committee.  The players of AC Milan, the team he supported, wore black arm bands.

Petrucci was at the airport to receive Simoncelli's body as it was brought home before being transferred to Coriano, where it was placed in an open coffin in a theatre, alongside his 250cc world championship-winning Gilera and his MotoGP Honda, to allow thousands of fans to pay their respects.

At the Formula One motor racing grand prix in India the following week, several drivers had the number 58 - Simoncelli's racing number - painted on their helmets by way of a tribute, while at the MotoGP of Valencia, the final race of the season, the riders assembled for a lap in his honour, led on Simoncelli's bike by the American former world champion Kevin Schwantz, whom he idolised as a boy.

Valentino Rossi pictured at Simoncelli's funeral with one of
the two motorcycles placed either side of the coffin

His funeral at the Church of Santa Maria Assunta took place with a crowd estimated at 20,000 gathered outside.  The service itself was broadcast live on national television.

Subsequently, Paolo Simoncelli announced the formation of a racing team in honour of his son that would help young riders to achieve their dream of becoming world champion. A monument was erected in Coriano bearing his race number, 58.

Simoncelli was inducted to the MotoGP Hall of Fame in 2014 and in 2016 it was announced his number would be retired from all classes of Grand Prix racing and reinstated only at the discretion of his family.

Travel tip:

Coriano was once the site of one of seven castles grouped closely together in the area of Rimini province in which it stands, which in the 12th century was regarded as of such importance strategically that the armies of the Malatesta and Borgia families, and of the Venetian Republic, Spain and the Papal States, all went to war in a bid to win control.  Eight centuries later it was the scene of a deadly battle in the Second World War, which cost the lives of so many Allied soldiers that a British cemetery was established just outside the town.

The Church of Santa Maria Assunta
dominates the town of Coriano

Travel tip:

The Coriano skyline is dominated by the Church of Santa Maria Assunta, which was built after the town had suffered heavy damage from bombing in the Second World War and consecrated in 1956.  It has a large dome and a bell tower that rises to 47m (154ft).  Nearby there is a museum, La Storia del Sic, in Via Garibaldi, which is dedicated to the memory of Marco Simoncelli.  In a garden behind the museum is the Simoncelli monument, part of which consists of an exhaust pipe enclosed in a cage which emits a three-metre flame for 58 seconds every Sunday evening.

More reading:

The record breaking career of Giacomo Agostini

Bruno Ruffo - Italy's first world champion on two wheels

Enrico Piaggio - creator of Italy's iconic Vespa scooter

Also on this day:

1920: The birth of brilliant filmmaker Federico Fellini

(Picture credits: Simoncelli top picture by Ranpie; Simoncelli on bike by Tomohiko Tanabe; Church of Santa Maria Assunta by Anna pazzaglia; via Wikimedia Commons)

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Paolo Borsellino - anti-Mafia judge

Magistrate slain by Mafia 57 days after colleague Giovanni Falcone

Paolo Borsellino

Paolo Borsellino, the judge who was helping to wage a successful war against the Sicilian Mafia when he was murdered in 1992, was born on this day in 1940 in Palermo.

He and his boyhood friend, Giovanni Falcone, became the most prominent members of a pool of anti-Mafia magistrates set up in the 1980s to investigate organised crime and share information.

They made considerable progress in weakening the Sicilian Mafia, also known as Cosa Nostra, in particular through the so-called Maxi Trial of 1986-87, which resulted in 360 convictions and prison sentences totalling 2,665 years.

Yet both were killed within the space of two months, Falcone on May 23 by a bomb placed under the motorway between Sicilian capital Palermo and the city's airport, Borsellino on July 19 by a car bomb as he left his mother's house in the centre of the city.

The two were born and raised within a few streets of one another in the Kalsa district of Palermo, not far from the tree-lined Foro Italico Umberto I, the broad thoroughfare that runs along the city's waterfront.

It was a middle class neighbourhood that suffered severe damage in air raids as the Allies prepared to invade Sicily in 1943.  The Borsellino house in Via della Vitriera, next door to the pharmacy his parents ran, was eventually declared unsafe, although the family lived in it until 1956.

He and Falcone would sometimes play football together in the nearby Piazza Mangione, where the group of boys joining in the games included several future mafiosi, including Tommaso Spadaro, who would play a key role in the so-called Pizza Connection drug trafficking racket that distributed heroin through pizza restaurants in the United States.

This famous picture of Falcone (left) and Borsellino,
sharing a joke, was published by Time magazine

They met again at Palermo University.  They had different political leanings, Borsellino joining a right-wing student group affiliated with the neo-fascist Movimento Sociale Italiano, while Falcone, despite a middle-class conservative background, attended meetings of communist sympathisers. Paradoxically, though their political ideologies were diametrically opposed, they were united in opposition to the Mafia and both decided to become magistrates.

Borsellino left with an honours degree in Law.  After working in several Sicilian cities through the 1960s and 70s he returned to Palermo in 1975 and achieved a noteworthy success when he identified and arrested the killer of a Caribinieri captain.

Soon he was seconded, along with Falcone and three others, to the anti-Mafia pool created by a senior magistrate, Rocco Chinnici.  Their investigations into Mafia activities and links between organised crime and prominent political and business figures quickly made them potential targets for assassination and a life of secret meeting places, armoured vehicles and police bodyguards became the norm.

In 1986, soon after the Maxi Trial, Borsellino became head of the Public Prosecution Office in Marsala, the port at the most westerly point of the island, about 126km (80 miles) from Palermo, but continued to work closely with Falcone, even though the Pool had essentially been broken up.

A commemorative tree has been planted in
Via d'Amelio, where Borsellino was killed

Some of the academics who have studied the Mafia believe the two were close to bringing Cosa Nostra to its knees when they were murdered and there has been speculation that alleged links between the organisation and the state prompted their killings because they knew too much about corruption at high levels.

Borsellino, who left a wife and daughter, is considered as one of the most important figures in the fight against the Mafia, not least because the Maxi Trial established for the first time that Cosa Nostra was a real, functioning organisation, rather that a word coined merely to describe a mentality shared by criminals who were otherwise unconnected.

The Palermo International Airport is now known as Falcone-Borsellino Airport and there is a Velodromo Paolo Borsellino multi-use stadium in Palermo. In 2006, he and Falcone were named in a list of 'Heroes of the Last 60 Years' by Time Magazine.

Travel tip:

The Foro Italico Umberto I takes its name from the wide area of lawned public space between the road and the sea, established on the site of a coastal path created in the 16th century which became popular in the 17th and 18th centuries as a leisure area for wealthy Palermo families.  Covering approximately 40,000 square metres, it encompasses a network of paths, lit up at night, plus trees and flowers, benches and ceramic statues and a scenic walk along the sea front. It was named the Foro Italico with Italian unification, with Umberto I added as an emotional response to the murder of the monarch by an anarchist in 1900.

The Baroque Chiesa del Purgatorio is an
historic church in Marsala

Travel tip:

As a tourist destination, Marsala is somewhat overshadowed by nearby Trapani and the Greek city of Selinunte, which has the remains of five temples.  Yet the town has plenty of history of its own and its archaeological museum is considered worth a visit. It is also well known for its fortified wine and as the port where Garibaldi landed in 1860 with his Expedition of the Thousand, an integral part of the sequence of events that culminated in the unification of Italy.

More reading:

How Giovanni Falcone turned his life into a crusade 
against the Mafia

Giuseppe Impastato - born into the Mafia and murdered for speaking out

Lucky Luciano - the Palermo gangster who organised New York's mobs

Also on this day:

1853: The opera Il Trovatore is performed for the first time


(Picture credits: Commemorative tree by Dedda71; Marsala church by Archenzo; via Wikimedia Commons)

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