Saint Gerard Majella

Patron saint of expectant mothers

St Gerard Majella

Gerardo Maiella, a poor tailor from what is now Basilicata who became the Catholic Church’s patron saint of expectant mothers, was born on this day in 1726.

Maiella, from the hillside town of Muro Lucano near Potenza, then part of the Kingdom of Naples, was credited with a number of miracles. The one that led him to be associated with childbirth relates to a handkerchief he dropped when visiting a family as a lay brother of the Congregation of the Redeemer, having become famous locally on account of his supposedly mystical powers.

According to the story, one of the daughters of the family picked up the handkerchief and ran out of the house to return it to him, at which he told her to keep it, suggesting  she ‘might need it some day’.  Years later, as a pregnant young woman fearing for her life in a painfully difficult labour, she remembered his words and asked for the handkerchief to be placed on her. Immediately, the pain ceased and she gave birth to a healthy child.

At the time, only about one in three pregnancies ended in a live birth and Maiella was hailed for his miraculous intervention. Word spread of the story and Italian mothers adopted him as their patron.

He was beatified in January 1893 by Pope Leo XIII and canonised as Saint Gerard Majella in December 1904 by Pope Pius X.

A statue of the Saint in Wittem, in the Netherlands

The youngest of five children, Gerardo was the son of a tailor who died when he was 12, leaving the family in poverty.

His mother sent him to her brother’s workshop so that he could learn his father’s trade. Despite being bullied by the foreman of the workshop, Gerardo saw out his four-year apprenticeship and after a period working as a servant to the Bishop of Lacedonia he set about making a living from his new skills, first as an employee of other tailors, then in his own shop. He reputedly gave his mother a third of what he earned to keep him and his three surviving sisters, distributing the rest among the poor people of his town and making offerings for the souls in purgatory.

Rejected twice by the Capuchin Order on the grounds of his frail appearance and supposedly poor health, in 1749 he joined the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer - also known as Redemptorists – an order founded in 1732 by St Alphonsus Liguori at Scala, near Naples, with a mission to preach the word of God to the poor.

St Gerard's Church at Lostock Hall,
near Preston in Lancashire

Maiella took the vows of Poverty, Chastity and Obedience. He remained the friend of the poor and worked on behalf of the order in many different jobs. He was said to have the gift of reading consciences and was permitted to counsel communities of religious women.

His intercession is now sought not only for expectant mothers but unborn children, women in childbirth, mothers generally, good confessions and, somewhat incongruously, falsely accused people.

This stemmed from an incident when Maiella was accused maliciously of breaking his vows by having a relationship with a young woman. When confronted by Alphonsus Liguori about the accusation, Gerardo remained silent. The girl later admitted the accusation was a lie and cleared his name.

Among other miracles credited to him were restoring life to a boy who had seemingly fallen to his death from a cliff, blessing the small amount of wheat possessed by an impoverished family so that it lasted for a year, multiplying the loaves of bread he was distributing to the poor and even walking across the surface of a stormy sea to rescue a stricken fishing boat.

Suffering from tuberculosis, Gerardo died in the chapel of Santa Maria Materdomini in Caposele, some 35km (22 miles) from Muro Lucano, where he was serving the Redemptorist order as clerk of works for a building project, on October 16, 1755, the date which is commemorated each year as St Gerard’s feast day.

The Basilica di San Gerardo developed from the chapel
in Materdomini where Maiella died 

There are churches in many parts of the world dedicated to St Gerard, the first of which was built in 1908 in Wellington, New Zealand.

In England, the town of Preston and the city of Bristol have churches named in his honour, as does Bellshill in the Scottish county of Lanarkshire.

There are Catholic parishes dedicated to St Gerard Majella in the Borough of Queens in New York and in the Del Rey section of Los Angeles, while St Gerard's Chapel in St Lucy's Church in Newark, New Jersey has since 1977 been a national shrine.

Muro Lucano perches on a hillside near Potenza

Travel tip:

Muro Lucano is situated about 50km (31 miles) north-west of Potenza.  With a population of around 5,500 it is built on a slope overlooking the Muro ravine, its houses built on a series of terraces. The area has significance in history as the site of a battle between Hannibal and Marcellus in the second Punic War, while its castle is said to have witnessed the murder of Queen Joan of Naples on the orders of her adopted son, Charles III of Naples.

Travel tip:

The village of Materdomini, a frazione of Caposele, grew from a hamlet after the chapel of Santa Maria Materdomini was developed into the Basilica of Santa Gerardo Maiella and became a centre for pilgrimage dedicated to the worship of St Gerard.

More reading:

How the festival of San Gennaro is celebrated across the world

The missionary saint from Limone sul Garda

Why St Thomas Aquinas is so important among saints

Also on this day:

1483: The birth of Renaissance great Raphael

(Picture credits: Saint Gerard by Nashastudiya; Wittem statue by Kris Roderburg; Mura Lucano by Pitichinaccio; San Gerardo Basilica by Gerrusson; all via Wikimedia Commons)




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Giovanni dalle Bande Nere - condottiero

Medici soldier who fathered Cosimo I de' Medici

Giovanni dalle Bande Nere: a portrait by an
unknown artist

Giovanni dalle Bande Nere, the military leader regarded as the last of the great Italian condottieri, was born on this day in 1498 in Forlì, in what is now the Emilia-Romagna region.

The condottieri were professional soldiers, mercenaries who hired themselves out to lead the armies of the Italian city-states and the Papacy in the frequent wars that ensued from the Middle Ages through to the Renaissance.

Giovanni spent the greater part of his military career in the service of Pope Leo X, the Medici pope. Indeed, he was a Medici himself, albeit from a then secondary branch of the family. Baptised Ludovico, he was the son of Giovanni de’ Medici, also known as Il Popolano and a great-nephew of Cosimo the Elder, the founder of the dynasty.

It was his mother, Caterina Sforza, the powerful daughter of the Duke of Milan, who renamed him Giovanni in memory of his father, her fourth husband, who died when the boy was just five months old. He became Giovanni dalle Bande Nere much later, in 1521, when he added black stripes to his military insignia in a show of mourning for Pope Leo X.

His upbringing brought out the worst aspects of his character, which was deeply influenced by his mother’s fiery nature. The family moved to Florence after his father’s death and after Caterina herself passed away in 1509, his care was placed in the hands of Iacopo Salviati and Lucrezia de’ Medici, the daughter of Lorenzo the Magnificent.

Giovanni's wife, Maria Salviati: a portrait by
Jacopo Pontormo, in the Uffizi Gallery

Giovanni was no easy child to look after. At the age of 12, a rebellious and bored schoolboy, he murdered another boy of the same age and for a while was banished from the city.

It was Salviati who found him a way to channel his aggression to a profitable purpose, using his influence after the Medicis returned to power in 1512 following an 18-year exile to get him work as commander of a cavalry company of mercenaries fighting for Leo X during the Battle of Urbino (1516-17).

In 1517, Giovanni married Maria, Salviati's daughter. Their son Cosimo, born on June 15, would go on to be Cosimo I de’ Medici, the first Grand Duke of Tuscany, under whose rule Florence enjoyed considerable prosperity and military power.

Giovanni continued to serve Leo X and in 1521 took part in the war to oust the French from the Duchy of Milan, gaining praise for his skirmishing tactics in securing a victory for the combined forces of Leo X and the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V at Vaprio d’Adda.

His loyalties could be bought, however. Following the death of Leo X, and chronically in debt, he agreed to fight for the French, only to be on the losing side at the Battle of Bicocca in 1522.

Subsequently he fought for the Sforza family and then for another Medici pope, Clement VII, who agreed to pay off all his debts.

Bronzino's portrait of Cosimo I de' Medici

It was while he was in the service of Clement VII, who was part of the League of Cognac, which united France, the Duchy of Milan, Venice, Florence and the pope against Charles V, that Giovanni died.

During a battle in November 1526 to hold back the advance of Imperial forces into Lombardy, he was struck in the right leg by a cannon ball. His leg was amputated, but he died, probably of gangrene, four days later.

Buried initially in Mantua, his body was eventually returned to Florence in 1685 to be entombed in the Chapel of the Princes in the Basilica of San Lorenzo. It was exhumed in 2012 to preserve the remains, which had been submerged during the Florence floods of 1966.

Soon after his death, mobile cannons became much more common on the battlefield and the armoured cavalry companies that the condottieri tended to lead became almost obsolete very quickly, hence Dalle Bande Nere tends to be called the last of the condottieri.

Bandinelli's statue of Giovanne dalle
Bande Nere dominates Piazza San Lorenzo

Travel tip:

Piazza San Lorenzo in Florence is notable for the statue of Giovanni dalle Bande Nere commissioned by Grand Duke Cosimo I in honour of his father and created by the sculptor Baccio Bandinelli, who placed Giovanni not on a horse but on a chair, holding what has been suggested is a broken lance. The statue was to have rested on a pedestal inside the Basilica of San Lorenzo but Cosimo I changed his mind and had the statue installed in the Palazzo Vecchio, in the Sala dell'Udienza.  However, the enormous marble pedestal on which Bandinelli wanted it to rest, decorated with a relief meant to depict the condottieri’s clemency towards his prisoners, proved too big and Cosimo changed his plans again, placing it in Piazza San Lorenzo. In another statue, under the portico of the Uffizi Gallery, Giovanni is standing and holding a sword.

Piazza Saffi is the main square in the centre of Forlì

Travel tip:

Forlì, a city of almost 120,000 inhabitants in the wealthy Emilia-Romagna region, has been the site of a settlement since the Romans were there in around 188BC.  Forlì today has several buildings of architectural, artistic and historical significance. At the heart of the city is Piazza Aurelio Saffi, named after the politician Aurelio Saffi, an important figure in the pro-republican faction during the Risorgimento. The Piazza Saffi also includes the 12th century Abbey of San Mercuriale.

More reading:

Bartolomeo Colleoni - the benevolent condottiero

How Federico da Montefeltro channelled profits of war into love of art

The grand designs of Cosimo I de' Medici

Also on this day:

1622: The birth of mathematician and scientist Vincenzo Viviani

1801: The birth of political philosopher and patriot Vincenzo Gioberti


(Picture credits: statue by Sailko via Wikimedia Commons)

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Francesco De Gregori - singer-songwriter

Performer inspired by songs of hero Bob Dylan

Francesco de Gregori on stage in 2008

The singer-songwriter Francesco De Gregori - popularly known as "Il Principe dei cantautori" (the prince of the singer-songwriters) – was born on this day in 1951.

Born in Rome, De Gregori has released around 40 albums in a career spanning 45 years, selling more than five million records.

Famous for the elegant and often poetic nature of his lyrics, De Gregori was once described by Bob Dylan as an “Italian folk hero”.

De Gregori acknowledges Dylan as one if his biggest inspirations and influences, along with Leonard Cohen and the Italian singer Fabrizio de André.  Covers of Dylan songs have regularly featured in his stage performances. He made an album in 2015 entitled Love and Theft: De Gregori Sings Bob Dylan.

Born into a middle class family – his father was a librarian, his mother a teacher - De Gregori spent his youth living in Rome or on the Adriatic coast at Pescara. He began to develop his musical career at the Folkstudio in Rome’s Trastevere district, where Dylan had performed in 1962.

De Gregori (left) and Lucio Dalla in Genoa in 2010

He became friends with fellow singer-songwriters Antonello Venditti, Mimmo Locasciulli and Giorgio Lo Cascio. It was alongside Venditti that he made his professional debut and the two collaborated on an album, Theorius Campus, in 1972. Venditti had more songs and was considered to have a better voice and when their record label indicated that they were more interested in Venditti, the partnership broke up.

De Gregori's 1973 solo debut album, Alice Non Lo Sa, did not impress the critics, who were not enthused either by his 1974 follow-up. But with his 1975 album, Rimmel, he began to enjoy some success. Reviewers liked his reflective and intelligent lyrics – less obscure than some of his earlier songs – and the album benefitted from some input from Lucio Dalla, with whom he struck a lasting friendship.

In 1976 he had another success with Bufalo Bill but an incident in Milan during a tour the following year led to him abruptly quitting the music business.

Bob Dylan in 2010

De Gregori had been a member of the Italian Communist Party and his songs often had a political theme, as did those of many Italian performers at that time, but while he was on stage at the PalaLido arena in Milan he was targeted by a group of left-wing extremists who began a protest during the show, accusing him of using left-wing messages merely to sell his records.  Fearing physical attack, he left the stage and the concert was abandoned, after which he announced that his career was over.

For the next few months he worked as a clerk in a book and music shop but was persuaded to resume his career the following year. A new album, De Gregori, included a song, "Generale," that would become one of his signature tracks. Soon afterwards, he joined Dalla on a successful tour entitled Banana Republic.  The two would later host a music show on the Rai television network, entitled Due.

Ironically, the title track of his next album, Viva l’Italia, was adopted as an anthem by the Italian Socialist Party.  In 1982 he recorded Titanic, the album many critics consider his tour de force, and since then, after a period working as a journalist for the newspaper L’Unità, De Gregori has recorded albums at a rate of one every year. His latest, Sotto il Vulcano, was released in February this year.

Married to Alessandra, whom he met at high school, De Gregori has two sons, Marco and Federico.  His nickname – Il Principe – was given to him by a journalist and apparently related to his sometimes haughty manner when dealing with the press.

Via Garibaldi in Trastevere

Travel tip:

The Folkstudio club opened in 1961 in a cellar in Via Garibaldi in the Trastevere area of Rome. Its founder was an American painter and musician, Harold Bradley Jr, who invited a then little known Bob Dylan to play there soon after it opened. The club, which at first promoted jazz and blues musicians, eventually hosted performers of many different styles and helped launch the careers of many Italian artists. Bradley moved back to the United States in 1967 but music lover Giancarlo Cesaroni took over. The club’s premises moved subsequently to the library L'Uscita, in Via dei Banchi Vecchi, then to Via Sacchi and later Via Frangipane, near the Colosseum.  A plaque on the wall in Via Garibaldi marks its original home.

Prati is an affluent Roman neighbourhood

Travel tip:

De Gregori was raised in the Prati district of Rome, close to the Vatican and St Peter’s Basilica, which is now an affluent residential neighbourhood which is popular with tourists for offering a relatively quiet place to stay that still provides easy access to the city’s historical centre. It has many authentic Roman trattorie as well as a host of bars and pubs.

More reading:

The enduring talents of Antonello Venditti

How pop singer Lucio Dalla found inspiration in opera great Enrico Caruso

The story of Adelmo Fornaciari - otherwise known as Zucchero

Also on this day:

1752: The birth of composer Niccolò Antonio Zingarelli

1960: The birth of businesswoman Daniela Riccardi

1963: The birth of politician turned TV presenter Irene Pivetti

(Picture credits: De Gregori and Dalla by Gianky; Bob Dylan by Alberto Cabello; Via Garibaldi by Mark Ahsmann; Prati street by Lalupa; all via Wikimedia Commons)


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Maria Redaelli - supercentenarian

Inter fan who was the oldest living person in Europe

Crowds turned out in Novate Milanese as Maria arrived
for a party to celebrate her 113th birthday

Maria Angela Redaelli, a supercentenarian who for 10 months was the oldest living person in Europe and for 14 months the oldest living person in Italy, was born on this day in 1899 in Inzago in Lombardy.

She died in 2013 on the eve of what would have been her 114th birthday, at which point she was the fourth oldest living person in the world, behind the Japanese supercentenarians Jiroemon Kimura and Misao Okawa, and the American Gertrude Weaver.

Kimura died two months later at the age of 116 years and 54 days, which is the most advanced age reached by any male in the history of the human race, according to verifiable records.

Okawa and Weaver survived for another two years, Okawa reaching 117 years and 27 days, which made her the fifth oldest woman in history at the time, although she has since been overtaken by the Italian Emma Morano, who is still living in Pallanza on Lake Maggiore and is, at 117 years and 124 days, the oldest person on the planet of verifiable age.

Maria with her personal Inter shirt

At the time of her death, Maria was living in Novate Milanese, a suburb of Milan, being looked after by her 88-year-old daughter Carla and her grandson, Lamberto. She outlived her son, Luigi, by nine years.

Most of Maria’s working life was spent in a silk spinning mill, where she had a job for more than 40 years.  Her husband, Gaspare, was a steelworker employed by the locomotive and aircraft manufacturer, Breda, in the Milan suburb of Sesto San Giovanni, where they lived for much of their married life.

She and Gaspare, whom she married in 1923, were together for 56 years until he died in 1979 at the age of 81.

Although she had some problems with her hearing and vision, she remained in generally good health even until her last days. Mentally sharp, she read magazines and newspapers and followed the fortunes of her favourite Milan football team, Internazionale, on television.

When she suffered a broken thigh in a fall in 2003, it was the first time in 104 years that she had needed to go into hospital.

Maria's all-time favourite Inter player,
the 1960s star Sandro Mazzola

On her 113th birthday, the Mayor of Novate Milanese hosted a party in Maria’s honour at the town hall. A police car picked her up at her daughter’s home, the mode of transport chosen because Italian police cars display the emergency telephone number 113.

At the town hall, she was surprised when the chief executive of Inter, Ernesto Paolillo, arrived with Bedy Moratti, sister of the club president, Massimo Moratti, and presented her with an Inter football shirt with her name on the back, and the number 113.

On previous occasions, she had met Inter stars Ivan Ramiro Cordoba and Javier Zanetti, although her favourite players were from a different era.

She admired Giuseppe Meazza, Inter’s prolific forward of the 1930s, after whom Milan’s municipal stadium – shared by Inter and AC Milan – was named.

Her real idol, though, was Sandro Mazzola, the goalscoring midfielder who starred in the Inter team that won the European Cup twice and the Serie A title three times in the 1960s.

She passed away in her sleep on the eve of another party planned for her, having already received a telegram of congratulations from the President of the Italian Republic, Giorgio Napoletano.

The Villa Rey is one of a number of elegant residences
that line the Martesana Canal in Inzago

Travel tip:

Inzago was a small town of 4,500 people when Maria Redaelli was born, halfway betweeen Milan and Bergamo and with farmland all around it. Today, the population has more than doubled and it is part of the Milan metropolitan area, although its farming roots are still strong and a cattle fair is held in the town every Monday.  The town is divided in two by the Martesana Canal, which has a number of elegant villas – once the summer residences of noble Milanese families – along its banks.

The suburb of Sesto San Giovanni today

Travel tip:

Sesto San Giovanni, the northernmost point on the Milan M1 metro line, is another place to have seen massive change since Maria and her husband Gaspare moved there in the 1920s, when it had a population of just over 15,000.  At that time it was an expanding industrial centre, the base for several large companies in the steel and motor industries but also the Campari drinks company.  The years after the Second World War saw a huge influx of migrants from other parts of Italy, attracted by the job possibilities. Today, the area is a busy suburb with more than 85,000 inhabitants. Many of the factories closed during the economic crisis of the 1990s and the current employers are more in the service sector, such as the telecommunications company, WIND.

More reading:

Giuseppe Meazza - Italian football's first superstar

Why Italy could not chose between Sandro Mazzola and Gianni Rivera

Internazionale - the breakaway club conceived over dinner at a Milan restaurant

Also on this day:

1881: The birth of Italy's post-war prime minister Alcide de Gasperi

(Picture credits: Maria arrives and with shirt by Andre86; Villa Rey by MarkusMark; Sesto San Giovanni by Maksim; all via Wikimedia Commons)

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Gelindo Bordin - marathon champion

First Italian to win Olympic gold in ultimate endurance test

Bordin on his way to victory in Seoul, pursued
by the Djibouti runner Hussain Ahmed Salah

Gelindo Bordin, the first Italian to win the gold medal in the Olympic Marathon, was born on this day in 1959 in Longare, a small town about 10km (six miles) south-east of Vicenza.

Twice European marathon champion, in 1986 and 1990, he won the Olympic competition in Seoul, South Korea in 1988.

Until Stefano Baldini matched his achievements by winning the marathon at the Athens Olympics in 2004 and claiming his second European title in Gothenburg in 2006, Bordin was Italy’s greatest long-distance runner.

He attained that status somewhat against the odds, too, having been sidelined for a year with a serious intestinal illness at the age of 20 and then being hit by a car while on a training run.

Bordin’s victory in Seoul at last made up for the disappointment the Italy team had suffered 80 years earlier when Dorando Pietri crossed the line first in the marathon at the London Olympics of 1908 only to be disqualified. In a bizarre finish to the race, Pietri took a wrong turning on entering the White City Stadium and had to be helped to his feet five times after collapsing on the track through exhaustion.

Relive Bordin's Olympic triumph

Bordin went on to win the Boston Marathon in the United States in 1990, the first reigning Olympic champion to win an event in which Olympians had seemed previously to be jinxed. His time of two hours, eight minutes and 19 seconds was the best of his career.

That year was a special one all round for Bordin. In September he successfully defended his European title in Split, Yugoslavia, becoming the first man to win the event twice, and just 35 days later he won the city marathon in Venice.

Earlier in his career he had won the city marathons of Milan, on his marathon debut in 1984, and Rome, three years later.

Bordin interviewed for a 2016 TV
documentary about his career

Venice was his last major success. In the World Championships in Tokyo in 1991, where he was hoping to improve on his bronze medal in Rome in 1987, he finished a disappointing eighth.

The following year, in Barcelona, his defence of his Olympic title ended at the halfway stage, when he strained a groin muscle jumping over a fallen runner. He was unable to finish the race and announced his retirement soon afterwards.

Like many Italian boys and girls, football was Bordin’s first sporting passion and he played as a goalkeeper for a junior team in Vicenza.

But after he was invited to take part in a cross-country race in his home village he fell in love with running and decided to give up his football ambitions.

He focussed at first on mountain cross-country running and at 17 he was one of the top Italian distance runners. Then came two major setbacks that might have finished a less determined athlete.

Bordin wins the European title
Stuttgart in 1986

The first came during a training camp in Mexico City, when he picked up a bug and developed intestinal problems that forced him out of competition for a year.

Then, shortly after making his comeback, he was hit by a car, suffering injuries that put him out of action for another year.

At 22, he made a second comeback and after winning in Milan on his marathon debut decided to become a professional runner.

At a time when doping scandals were beginning to damage the reputation of athletics – the sprinter Ben Johnson was stripped of his 100m gold three days before the marathon in Seoul – Bordin takes pride in having never been tempted to do anything that could be seen as cheating.

Following his retirement, he did not run again for 16 years until he was persuaded to take part in the Turin marathon on its 25th anniversary in 2009.

He began working for the Italian sports apparel manufacturer Diadora immediately after his retirement and today is the sports merchandising and marketing director of the company, which is based at Caerano, 25km (15 miles) north-west of Treviso.

A church in Longare made in Costozza limestone

Travel tip:

Longare, a town of 5,700 inhabitants, is on the road between Vicenza and Este in the Veneto region, skirting an area known as the Berici Hills of which the peak is Monte Barico. The architect Andrea Palladio used the area’s characteristic Costozza limestone in the construction of many of his famous villas. The area is popular with hikers although its tourist economy suffered after the US Army’s base just outside the town was chosen as a cold war site for nuclear weapons, giving rise to fears of contamination.

Travel tip:

Caerano – or Caerano di San Marco to use its full name – is a largely modern town today but was once a signoria – a medieval city-state – that belonged first to the Ezzelini family, who were powerful in the 13th century, before passing into the hands of the Scaligeri family and eventually coming under the rule of the Republic of Venice. There are a few remnants of the ancient Venetians and some Roman artefacts, but the town’s main claim to fame today lies in being the home not only of the Diadora brand but also the Sanremo and Sanmarco labels.

More reading:

How Luigi Beccali brought home Italy's first track gold

Alberto Cova's golden hat-trick

Why the 1960 Olympics was an historic moment for black athletes

Also on this day:

1725: The birth of adventurer, author and womaniser Giacomo Casanova

(Picture credit: limestone church by Claudio Gioseffi via Wikimedia Commons)

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April Fools' Day - Italian style

What lies behind the tradition of Pesce d'Aprile?

The April 1 tradition in Italy is to stick
a cut-out fish on someone's back

Playing practical jokes on April 1 is a tradition in Italy in the same way as many other countries, although in Italy the day is called Pesce d’Aprile – April’s Fish – rather than April Fools’ Day.

It is said to have became popular in Italy between 1860 and 1880, especially in Genoa, where families in the wealthier social circles embraced the idea, already popular in France, of marking the day by playing tricks on one another.

The most simple trick involves sticking a cut-out picture of a fish on the back of an unsuspecting ‘victim’ and watching how long it takes for him or her to discover he had been pranked but over the years there have been many much more elaborate tricks played.

Often these have involved spoof announcements or false stories in the newspapers or on TV or radio shows, aimed at embarrassing large numbers of gullible readers, viewers or listeners.

One of the first such large-scale hoaxes took place in 1878, when the newspaper Gazzetta d’Italia announced the cremation of an Indian Maharaja was to take place in Florence, attracting a large crowd to Parco delle Cascine where a pyre had been built in preparation for a traditional Hindu funeral.  At the moment the hearse was due to arrive, groups of youngsters dressed as fishermen emerged from bushes and ran around the crowd shouting ‘Pesce d’Aprile’.

A Milan newspaper ran a hoax story
about horses needing tail lights

Another involved a spoof story that horses had to be equipped with tail lights, run by the Milan newspaper Le Notte in 1961, which prompted many Milanese to take their animals to garages for the lights to be fitted, only to be told by amused mechanics that they had been fooled.

And in 1993, posters appeared on the streets of Milan and Turin announcing a new road tax to be paid according to the bodyweight of citizens. Again a newspaper was behind the joke.

The oldest recorded mass deception is said to have taken place in Bologna in the 13^th century when the academic Buoncompagno claimed to have invented a flying machine which he promised to demonstrate on April 1 by making a flight across the city.  Most of the city’s population gathered to witness this phenomenon, but of course it never took place.

The origins of the tradition have been the subject of numerous theories.  Some link it to the Roman festival of Hilaria, which celebrated the coming of spring and ran until roughly April 1. Games and amusements took place, including masquerades, when people would don disguises meant to trick friends into believing they were someone else.

Others suggest it relates to the adoption of the Gregorian calendar in 1582, which moved a traditional New Year celebration of exchanging gifts from April 1 to January 1. In those days, of course, communications were somewhat slower and less reliable than today and many people continued to give presents on April 1. The story goes that those in the know would denounce those ignorant of the change as ‘April fools’ and make their point by handing over not a gift but an empty box.

The Roman general Mark Antony was said
to have been the victim of Cleopatra's prank

Likewise, there are many possible explanations for how the Italians (and the French) link the day to fish.

Some say it is linked to the astrological sign Pisces, the time period for which ends on March 20, others that the origin is in a prank played by Cleopatra on her Roman lover, Mark Antony, on an April 1 fishing trip.

The story goes that, so as to create the impression that he was an expert fisherman, Mark Antony instructed his slaves to dive beneath their boat and attach fish to the end of his line, making it appear he had landed a large catch.  But Cleopatra rumbled his deception. She challenged him to return to the same spot the following day to prove it was no fluke, but only after first instructing the slaves to attach a dead fish to his line, much to Mark Antony’s puzzlement and her amusement.

Another explanation is that the fish connection goes back to the Blessed Bernard of San Genesio, Patriarch of Aquileia in the 14^th century, who saved the life of Pope Clement VI after he choked on a herring bone on April 1.

In southern Italy, the word for dried cod fish – baccalà – is sometimes used in slang to describe a fool or an idiot, and supposedly used to be aimed in particular at fishermen who took to the sea in early April and returned to harbour empty-handed, not realising that it was too soon in the season for the fish to have arrived in the shallow waters offshore.

Small boats amount to three quarters of Italy's fishing fleet

Travel tip:

Italians consume more fish per capita than most Europeans, which means that, though in decline, the fishing industry remains an important part of the country's economy. The size of the total catch landed in Italian waters has dropped by more than 40 per cent in the last decade yet still added up to 191,700 tonnes in 2015. Of the national fleet of more than 12,000 fishing vessels, almost three quarters are small boats used to fish the waters close to the shore. Fishing takes place almost everywhere along Italy's 9,136km (5,677 miles) of coastline. The boats in the picture are on the island of Stromboli, off the north coast of Sicily in the Tyrrhenian Sea.

Travel tip:

The Parco delle Cascine (Cascine Park) is a monumental and historical park in the city of Florence, covering an area of 160 hectares (395 acres) in a long and narrow strip along the north bank of the Arno river, extending from the centre of Florence in a westerly direction until the point where the Mugnone river flows into the Arno. It was built originally as a farming and hunting estate for the city's ruling Medici family in the 16th century. 


More reading:

How Italy celebrates Christmas

Capodanno - the Italian New Year


Also on this day:

1946: The birth of football manager Arrigo Sacchi



(Picture credit: fishing boats by NorbertNagel via Wikimedia Commons)

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Pope Benedict XIV

Bologna cardinal seen as great intellectual leader

Pierre Subleyras's portrait of Benedict XIV, painted
in the early 1700s, is in the Palace of Versailles

Prospero Lorenzo Lambertini, who would in his later years become Pope Benedict XIV, was born on this day in 1675 in Bologna.

Lambertini was a man of considerable intellect, considered one of the most erudite men of his time and arguably the greatest scholar of all the popes.

He promoted scientific learning, the baroque arts, the reinvigoration of the philosophy of Saint Thomas Aquinas and the study of the human form.

He was Bishop of Ancona at the age of 52, Archbishop of Bologna at 56 and Pope at 65 but at no time did he consider his elevation to these posts an honour upon which to congratulate himself.  He saw them as the opportunity to do good and tackled each job with zeal and energy. A man of cheerful character, he set out never to allow anyone to leave his company dissatisfied or angry, without feeling strengthened by his wisdom or advice. 

He attracted some criticism for his willingness to make concessions or compromises in his negotiations with governments and rulers, yet his pursuit of peaceful accommodation was always paramount and historians have noted that few conflicts in which he sought to arbitrate remained unresolved after his administration came to an end.

As governor of the papal states he reduced taxation and encouraged agriculture. He supported free trade.
As a scholar he laid the ground work for the present Vatican Museum.

The 18th century bust of Benedict XIV by
Pietro Bracci is in the Museum of Grenoble

The third of five children born to Marcella Lambertini and Lucrezia Bulgarini, both of whom came from noble families, he was precociously gifted as a child.  He began to study rhetoric, Latin, philosophy and theology at the Collegium Clementianum in Rome from the age of 13. 

At the age of 19 he became a Doctor of Sacred Theology and Doctor Utriusque Juris (canon and civil law).

He was consecrated a bishop in Rome in July 1724. He became Bishop of Ancona in 1727 and was made a Cardinal in 1728. He was made Cardinal Priest of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme in May 1728 and served as the Archbishop of Bologna from 1731.

At the time of the death of Pope Clement XII, Lambertini’s reputation was at its highest and he was invited to attend the papal conclave to choose a successor. Among the 54 cardinals who took part in the process, several cliques developed and through various intrigues the conclave would last six months.

Ultimately, after one proposal after another was rejected, it was suggested that Lambertini might be put forward himself as a compromise candidate.  He made a speech in which he said, slightly with tongue in cheek: “If you wish to elect a saint, choose Gotti; a statesman, Aldobrandini; an honest man, me."

The words struck a chord with the cardinals and Lambertini was elected Pope on the evening of August 17, 1740 and took his new pontifical name of Benedict XIV in honour of Pope Benedict XIII. 

St Peter's Basilica has a monument
marking the tomb of Benedict XIV

Benedict governed the states of the church with wisdom and moderation and introduced many reforms to promote the happiness and prosperity of the people. Measures were put in place to curb the excesses of the Catholic Church and to replenish the resources that have been exhausted by the extravagance of some of his predecessors as Pope.

In spiritual and religious matters, Benedict left a lasting impression. His papal bulls and encyclicals played an important part in defining and clarifying obscure and difficult points of ecclesiastical law. For example, he brought definition to the question of mixed marriages, between Catholics and Protestants. It was decreed that mixed marriages were allowable under certain conditions, one of which was that children born of those marriages should be brought up in the Catholic faith.

Benedict's health began to decline in the 1750s and he died on May 3, 1758 at the age of 83. Following his funeral he was buried in St Peter’s Basilica and a large monument erected in his honour.

The Apostolic Palace above the colonnades in St Peter's Square

Travel tip:

The Apostolic Palace is the official residence of the Pope, which is located in Vatican City. It is also known as the Papal Palace, Palace of the Vatican and Vatican Palace. The building contains the Papal Apartments, various offices of the Catholic Church and the Holy See, private and public chapels, Vatican Museums, and the Vatican Library, including the Sistine Chapel, Raphael Rooms, and Borgia Apartment. The modern tourist can see these and other parts of the palace, but other parts, such as the Sala Regia and Cappella Paolina, are closed to tourists.

The facade of Bologna's cathedral

Travel tip:

The seat of the Archbishop of Bologna is the Metropolitan Cathedral of St Peter.  In the past, there was a baptistery in front of the façade but the building, as it may be seen today, is the one renovated after a fire in the 12^th century and an earthquake in the 13^th century. Inside the church are paintings by Prospero Fontana, Ludovico Carracci and Marcantonio Franceschini.

More reading:

How Pope Benedict XV tried to stop the First World War

Gregory XV - the last pope to issue ordinance against witchcraft

The consecration of St Peter's Basilica

Also on this day:

1425: The birth of the 'Warrior Woman' Duchess of Milan

(Bust by Milky; Monument in St Peter's by Ben Skála; Apostolic Palace by MarkusMark; Cathedral facade by Jean Housen; all via Wikmedia Commons)

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