Francesco Baracca – flying ace

Italy’s most successful First World War fighter pilot

Francesco Baracca alongside his Spad XIII with the
family's prancing stallion logo displayed on the side

Italy’s top fighter pilot of the First World War, Francesco Baracca, died in action on this day in 1918.

He had been flying a strafing mission against Austro-Hungarian ground troops in support of an Italian attack on the Montello Hill, about 17km (11 miles) north of Treviso in the Veneto, on which he was accompanied by a rookie pilot, Tenente Franco Osnago.

They split from one another after being hit by ground fire but a few minutes later, Osnago saw a burning plane falling from the sky.  Witnesses on the ground saw it too. Osnago flew back to his base but Baracca never returned.

Only when the Austro-Hungarian troops were driven back was the wreckage of Baracca’s Spad VII aircraft found in a valley.  His body was discovered a few metres away.

A monument in his memory was later built on the site. Osnago, fellow pilot Ferruccio Ranza and a journalist recovered his body. It was taken back to his home town of Lugo in the province of Ravenna, where a large funeral was held.

Francesco Baracca in his airman's
uniform in 1916

It is thought that Barocca was seeking to provide Osnago with cover from above as he swooped on enemy trenches when he was attacked by an Austrian plane and downed.  The official version of events, written in the interests of propaganda, was that he had been hit by groundfire but records later showed a kill claimed by the crew of an Austrian two-seater, who noted the exact time and location of the engagement and took a photograph of the shot-down aircraft.

Mystery surrounded the condition of Baracca’s body, which reportedly bore the marks of a bullet to the head, while his pistol was out of its holster. This led to speculation that he had taken his life as the plane fell, rather than be killed in the crash or taken prisoner.

Baracca had claimed a total of 34 aerial victories, which made him the most successful of all Italy’s First World War flying aces.

His first came in 1916, flying a French-built Nieuport II, equipped with Lewis guns.  His victim was an Austrian Hansa-Brandenburg CI, which he hit in the fuel tank.  It was also Italy's first aerial victory in the war, brought about by what would become his favourite manoeuvre, which was to zoom in unseen behind and below an enemy.

The monument to Baracca erected
on the spot where his plane fell

From the 1a Squadriglia Caccia, Baracca transferred to the 70a Squadriglia, where he was promoted to captain, before moving again, with nine victories, to the newly formed 91st Squadriglia, known as the "Squadron of the Aces", flying the Spad VII and Spad XIII planes. Soon, his ever-increasing list of victories made him nationally famous.

He had entered the Military Academy of Modena in October 1907 and became a cavalryman with the prestigious Piemonte Reale Cavalleria Regiment on his commissioning in 1910. He became interested in aviation and learned to fly at Reims, France, receiving his pilot's licence in July 1912.

From a wealthy landowning background, Baracca had the title of Count. The family’s coat of arms bore the black prancing stallion symbol he attached to all his aircraft.

  

Baracca's mother is said to have presented the emblem, the Cavallino Rampante, to Enzo Ferrari, who incorporated it as part of the badge displayed by cars belonging to his Scuderia Ferrari racing team and in time all Ferrari automobiles.

Lugo's main square contains a huge memorial to Baracca

Travel tip:

The town of Lugo, Baracca’s place of birth, is situated in the Emilia-Romagna countryside between the cities of Bologna and Ravenna.  From above, coincidentally, some say the shape of the town resembles an aircraft. The town’s landmark is the Rocca Estense, an Este-family fortress that now contains the town hall. Next to the fortress is a monument to Baracca erected in 1936 and town also has a museum dedicated to him, in his former house, which displays mementos, uniforms, medals from Baracca's life, as well as rudders and guns taken from shot-down aircraft.

Artillery shells stockpiled in Crocetta, which
was on the front line in World War One

Travel tip:

The village of Crocetta del Montello, once known as Crocetta Trevigiana, the nearest community to where Baracca was shot down, suffered badly because of the First World War. It had become prosperous after the construction, in 1882, of a vast hemp rope mill, providing employment and helping the area acquire resources including electricity, thanks to water-driven generators set up on the Brentella river. But the mill was destroyed during the 1918 battle that Baracca was supporting – the Battle of the Solstice. It was rebuilt only to be hit by global financial crises, forcing it to close in 1938, leaving an unemployment problem and triggering the bankruptcy of many local businesses that depended on it

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Raffaella Carrà - entertainer and TV presenter

Much-loved star with long and varied career

Raffaella Carrà has been one of the most
popular entertainers on Italian TV for 35 years

Raffaella Carrà, the singer, dancer, television presenter, and actress often simply known as la Carrà or Raffaella, was born in Bologna on this day in 1943.

Carrà has become a familiar face on Italian TV screens as the host of many variety shows and, more recently, as a judge on the talent show The Voice of Italy.

She has also enjoyed a recording career spanning 45 years and was a film actress for the best part of 25 years, having made her debut at the age of nine.  Her best-known screen role outside Italy was alongside Frank Sinatra in the hit American wartime drama, Von Ryan’s Express.

Carrà was born Raffaella Maria Roberta Pelloni. Shew grew up in the Adriatic resort of Bellaria-Igea Marina, just north of Rimini, where her father ran a bar and her maternal grandfather an ice cream parlour.  At the age of eight, she won a place at the National Dance Academy in Rome and from there moved to the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografie, Italy’s oldest film school.

Her film career was never more than modestly successful. Although she has a long list of credits, she was cast mainly in small parts. Her most successful years were the 1960s, when she had more prominent roles in Mario Monicelli’s I compagnoni – the companions – which was a hit in Italy, and in Von Ryan’s Express, in which she played the part of the mistress of a German officer, which raised her profile with international audiences.

Carrà opposite Gian Maria Volontè in the 1963 film
Il terrorista, directed by Gianfranco De Bosio

It was at the suggestion of one of her directors, Dante Guardamagna, that she changed her name.  Carrà, in fact, was his choice, after the Futurist artist Carlo Carrà, who was a particular favourite of his.

She frequently appeared in the gossip columns, which excitedly reported an affair with Sinatra at around the time Von Ryan’s Express was being shot, and a longer relationship with the Juventus footballer Gino Stacchini, her partner for eight years.

Carrà also enjoyed some success in Italian TV dramas but it was her move into variety shows in the 1970s that would catapult her to bigger fame.  An uninhibited and daring dancer, she pushed the limits of what was acceptable on Italian TV screens at the time, achieving notoriety for a while as the first showgirl to reveal her belly button on camera, in the show Canzonissima, which attracting serious criticism from the Catholic Church, who felt it bordered in indecency.

Carrà became famous as a singer and dancer

Nonetheless, her career took off, both as a dancer and a singer, in Italy and in Spain, where she was almost as popular as in her home country.  The sensual Tuca tuca, written as a song and dance presentation by her long-term collaborator and boyfriend Gianni Boncompagni, gave her a first hit and others followed, including Chissa Se Va, A far l’amore comincia tu, and Tanti auguri, which was probably her most successful. 

She even had a hit in the United Kingdom, a difficult market for singers from Europe, with Do It, Do It Again. Years later, a video of the single featured in an episode of the sci-fi series Doctor Who.

Her move from performer to TV host came in the 1980s, when as the presenter of daytime TV show Pronto, Raffaella? for RAI, a game show in which viewers could speak to her directly by telephone, she displayed an ability to relate both to the celebrities who appeared as studio guests and ordinary members of the public.

More shows for RAI followed, her success bringing a move to the Fininvest channels owned by Silvio Berlusconi and a return to RAI, where in the mid-90s she became the host of the huge hit, Carràmba! Que Sorpresa, which reunited long-separated friends and relatives.

Carrà sometimes presented the television coverage of the Sanremo music competition and was Italy’s jury spokesman on their return to the Eurovision Song Contest in 2011, which ended the country’s 13-year absence.

She became the face of the Italian national lottery for many years, because her shows, starting with Canzonissima and continuing with Fantastico, Carràmba! Che Sorpresa and Carràmba! Che Fortuna would incorporate the lottery draw.

More recently, she presented Forte forte forte – a talent show on which she worked with long-time romantic partner Sergio Jacopo – as well The Voice of Italy.

Her Italian career ran in parallel with similar success in variety shows in Spain, who chose her to front a gala night in 2016 celebrating 60 years of Spanish public television.

The harbour area at Bellaria-Igea Marina

Travel tip:

Bellaria-Igea Marina is a popular resort about 14km (9 miles) from Rimini and 35km (22 miles) from Ravenna in Emilia-Romagna.  As well as extensive sandy beaches it has a charming harbour area on the site of the fishing village it once was. It began to develop as resort in the early 20^th century, with many tree-lined avenues running parallel with the shore. Interesting features include the Red House, the summer residence of the writer Alfredo Panzini, in the Via Panzini, and the ‘shell house’ in Via Nicolò Zeno, the entire walls of which are covered in shells attached by the owner.

Travel tip:

The Centro sperimentale di cinematografia, established in Rome in 1935, is the oldest film school in Western Europe. It is located close to the Cinecittà studios. Classes are limited to only six students, who train using classic 35mm equipment. Many of Italy’s finest actors and directors are former students.

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Giovanni Paolo Panini – artist

Painter who preserved scenes of Rome

Giovanni Paolo Panini, in a portrait by
Louis Gabriel Blanchet 

Giovanni Paolo Panini, an artist mainly known for his views of Rome, was born on this day in 1691 in Piacenza.

He is particularly remembered for his view of the interior of the Pantheon, commissioned by the Venetian collector, Francesco Algarotti, in around 1734.

The Pantheon was as much a tourist attraction in Panini’s day as it is today and Panini manipulated the proportions and perspective to include more of the interior that is actually visible from any one vantage point.

Indeed, many of his works, especially those of ruins, have slightly unreal embellishment. He sought to meet the needs of visitors for painted postcards depicting scenes of Italy and his clients were often happy with minor distortions of reality if it meant they could show off a unique picture. 

As a young man, Panini trained in his native town of Piacenza. He moved to Rome where he studied drawing. His work was to influence other painters, such as Canaletto, who resolved to do for Venice what Panini had done for Rome and, of course, enjoyed enormous fame and success.

Panini's view of the inside of the Pantheon
typified his use of manipulated perspective 

Much in demand, Panini also became famous as the decorator of Roman palaces. He was hailed for his frescoes at the Villa Patrizi, painted between 1719–1725. He was also noted for his work at the Palazzo de Carolis (1720), and the Seminario Romano (1721–1722).

He also painted some portraits, including one of Pope Benedict XIV.

Panini taught in Rome at the Accademia di San Luca and the Académie de France. From 1754, he served as the principal of the Accademia di San Luca.

His use of perspective was later the inspiration for the Panini projection, which was instrumental in displaying panoramic views.  He was professor of perspective at the Académie de France.

He died in Rome on 21 October 1765 at the age of 74.

Travel tip:

The Pantheon in Piazza della Rotonda in Rome is considered to be Rome’s best preserved ancient building. It was built in AD 118 on the site of a previous building dating back to 27 BC. It was consecrated as a church in the seventh century and many important people are buried there, including Victor Emmanuel II, his son, Umberto I, and his wife, Queen Margherita.

Canaletto's Grande Veduta of the Grand Canal is
on display at Ca' Rezzonico

Travel tip:

Many of Canaletto’s paintings of Venice are in museums and private collections around the world, particularly in England and the United States, A small number are on display in Ca’ Rezzonico in Venice, a palace on the Grand Canal, open to tourists.

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Mario Rigoni Stern – author

Brave soldier became a bestselling novelist

Mario Rigoni Stern pictured in 1958

The novelist Mario Rigoni Stern, who was a veteran of World War II, died on this day in 2008 in Asiago in the Veneto region.

His first novel, Il sergente della neve - The Sergeant in the snow - was published in 1953. It drew upon his experiences as a sergeant major in the Alpine corps during the disastrous retreat from Russia in the Second World War. It became a best seller and was translated into English and Spanish.

Rigoni Stern had been a sergeant commanding a platoon in Mussolini’s army in the Soviet Union during the retreat of the Italians in the winter of 1942.

His book was inspired by how he succeeded in leading 70 survivors on foot from the Ukraine into what was then White Russia - now part of Belarus - and back to Italy.

It won the Viareggio Prize for best debut novel and went on to sell more than a million copies.

At the time the author said it was not written to claim a role for him as a hero, but as a tribute to his fellow soldiers and the ordinary Russians who gave them shelter.

Rigoni Stern was born in Asiago in the Veneto and became a cadet at the military academy at Aosta in 1938. He became a sergeant in the Alpine corps - the Alpini - and was posted to the eastern front.

After the Italian armistice with the allies in 1943 he refused to continue serving in the army of Mussolini’s puppet republic of Salò and was interned in a German prison camp.

At the end of the war he returned to Asiago and got a job working for his local council.

Rigoni Stern at a celebration of the Alpini
Corps in 2006

In 1953 he sent the manuscript of his book to the Einaudi publishing house. They agreed to publish it but said they didn’t think he had a future as a writer.

They were proved wrong as he went on to publish more than a dozen novels and collections of short stories and was awarded three literary prizes.

His novel, The Story of Tonie, published in 1978, was about a peasant smuggler in the mountains who lived between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the First World War.

Tonie was a simple shepherd who couldn’t avoid getting caught up in the outside events of the new century leading up to the war. Rigoni Stern described vividly this world where no one had a distinctive nationality and citizens had to struggle to preserve their identity.

Rigoni Stern was in his 80s before he saw The Sergeant in the snow recreated on stage and screen by Marco Paolini, an actor and author.

The production had been staged at Milan’s Piccolo Theatre and was then filmed in 2007 in front of an audience in a disused quarry near Vicenza, from which the architect Palladio had once extracted the material to build his villas.

It was shown on Italian television to an audience of in excess of five million people.

Mario Rigoni Stern died the following year, at the age of 86, having been diagnosed with a brain tumour in November 2007.

Piazza Il Risorgimento in Asiago

Travel tip:

Asiago, where Mario Rigoni Stern was born and died, is in the province of Vicenza in the Veneto, halfway between Vicenza to the south and Trento, the capital of Trentino-Alto-Adige, to the west. It is now a major ski resort and famous for producing Asiago cheese.

Travel tip:

The town of Vicenza, where The Sergeant in the snow was filmed, is about 60km (37 miles) to the west of Venice. Known as ‘the city of Palladio’, it was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1994. You can see Palladio’s Teatro Olimpico in the centre of town and visit the elegant villas he designed in the surrounding area. His most famous villa, known as La Rotonda, is just outside the town. 

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Hugo Pratt – comic book creator

Talented writer and artist travelled widely

Hugo Pratt pictured in 1989

The creator of the comic book character, Corto Maltese, was born Hugo Eugenio Pratt on this day in 1927 in Rimini.

Pratt became a famous comic book writer and artist and was renowned for combining strong story telling with extensive historical research.

His most famous character, Corto Maltese, came into being when he started a magazine with Florenzo Ivaldi.

Pratt spent most of his childhood in Venice with his parents, Rolando Pratt and Evelina Genero. His paternal grandfather, Joseph Pratt, was English and Hugo Pratt was related to the actor, Boris Karloff, who was born William Henry Pratt.

Hugo Pratt moved to Ethiopia with his mother in the late 1930s to join his father, who was working there following the conquest of the country by Benito Mussolini.

Pratt’s father was later captured by British troops and died from disease while he was a prisoner of war.

Pratt and his mother were interned in a prison camp where he would regularly buy comics from the guards.

After the war, Pratt returned to Venice where he organised entertainment for the Allied troops. He later joined what became known as ‘the Venice group’ with other Italian cartoonists, including Alberto Ongaro and Mario Faustinelli.

In the late 1940s he moved to Buenos Aires to work for an Argentine publisher where he published some of his important early cartoon series. He then produced his first comic book as a complete author, both writing and illustrating Ann of the Jungle -  Anna della jungla.

He moved to London and drew a series of war comics for Fleetway Publications working with British scriptwriters.

Pratt's most famous character on the cover
of his most famous story

When Pratt moved back to Italy he collaborated with a children’s comic book magazine, for which he adapted classics such as Treasure Island and Kidnapped.

After starting a comic magazine with Florenzo Ivaldi, he published his most famous story in the first issue, A Ballad of the Salty Sea - Una balata del mare salato, which first introduced Corto Maltese.

Corto’s adventures continued in a French magazine with many of the stories taking place in historical eras that were well researched by Pratt.

Corto was a psychologically complex character as a result of the travel experiences and inventiveness of his creator.

He brought Pratt much success and his series was published in an album format and translated into 15 languages.

Pratt died of bowel cancer in 1995 in Switzerland . In 2005 he was inducted into the Comic Book Hall of Fame at the Will Eisner Comic Industry awards in San Diego.

Rimini's duomo - the Tempio Malatestiano

Travel tip:

Rimini, where Hugo Pratt was born, has wide sandy beaches and plenty of hotels and restaurants. It is one of the most popular seaside resorts in Europe, but it is also a historic town with many interesting things to see. The Tempio Malatestiano is a 13th century Gothic church originally built for the Franciscans. It was transformed on the outside in the 15th century and decorated inside with frescos by Piero della Francesca and works by Giotto and many other artists.

Golden mosaics cover the ceilings inside
the Basilica of St Mark in Venice

Travel tip:

St Mark’s Basilica in Venice, where Hugo Pratt spent most of his life, is the Cathedral Church and one of the best examples of Italo-Byzantine architecture in existence. Because of its opulent design and gold ground mosaics it became a symbol of Venetian wealth and power and has been nicknamed Chiesa d’Oro (Church of Gold). The spacious interior with its multiple choir lofts inspired the development of the Venetian polychoral style used by the Gabrielis, uncle and nephew, and Claudio Monteverdi.

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Giacomo Leopardi – poet and philosopher

The tragic life of a brilliant Italian writer

Giacomo Leopardi, depicted in a portrait in 1820

One of Italy’s greatest 19th century writers, Giacomo Leopardi, died on this day in 1837 in Naples.

A brilliant scholar and philosopher, Leopardi led an unhappy life in Recanati in the Papal States, blighted by poor health, but he left as a legacy his superb lyric poetry.

By the age of 16, Leopardi had independently mastered Greek, Latin and several modern languages and had translated many classical works. He had also written some poems, tragedies and scholarly commentaries.

He had been born deformed and excessive study made his health worse. He became blind in one eye and developed a cerebrospinal condition that was to cause him problems for the rest of his life.

He was forced to suspend his studies and, saddened by an apparent lack of concern from his parents, he poured out his feelings in poems such as the visionary work, Appressamento della morte - Approach of Death - written in 1816 in terza rima, in imitation of Petrarch and Dante.

His frustrated love for his married cousin, and the death from consumption of the young daughter of his father’s coachman, only deepened his despair. The death of the young girl inspired perhaps his greatest lyric poem, A Silvia.

The scholar and patriot Pietro Giordani visited Leopardi in 1818 and urged him to leave home. Leopardi then spent a few unhappy months in Rome, but returned to live in Recanati.

After accepting an offer to edit Cicero’s works in Milan in 1825, he left home again.

Giacomo Leopoldi on his death bed in 1837

He spent the next few years travelling between Bologna, Pisa and Florence while he wrote a collection of poems and a philosophical work.

His frustrated love for a Florentine beauty, Fanny Targioni-Tozzetti, inspired some of his saddest poetry.

Leopardi finally settled in Naples in 1833, where he wrote the long poem, Ginestra.

The death he had long regarded as the only escape from his unhappiness came to him suddenly in 1837 during a cholera epidemic.

His genius and frustrated hopes during his life had found their way into his poetry which has long been admired for its intensity and musicality.

Casa Leopardi: The poet's home in Recanati is now a museum

Travel tip:

Leopardi was born and lived for most of his life in Recanati, a town in the province of Macerati in the Marche region of Italy.The great tenor Beniamino Gigli was born in Recanati in 1890 and sang in the choir at Recanati cathedral as a boy. The Italian paternal ancestors of the Argentine footballer Lionel Messi are also believed to have originated from Recanati. Leopardi's house is now a museum.

The monument at Leopaldi's tomb in Parco Vergiliano, Naples

Travel tip:

Leopardi was buried at first in the atrium of the church of San Vitale at Fuorigrotta but in 1898 his tomb was moved to the Parco Virgiliano in Naples and declared a national monument.

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Pope's would-be killer pardoned

Turkish gunman 'freed' but immediately detained

Pope John Paul II's historic meeting in prison with Mehmet
Ali Agca, the Turkish gunman who attempted to kill him

Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, Italy’s president, signed the order granting an official pardon to Pope John Paul II’s would-be assassin, Mehmet Ali Agca, on this day in 2000.

The Turkish gunman had spent 19 years in jail after wounding the pontiff in St Peter’s Square in Rome in May 1981 but John Paul II, who had forgiven Agca from his hospital bed and visited him in prison in 1983, had been pressing the Italian government to show clemency and allow him to return to Turkey.

However, at the same time as granting him his freedom under the Italian judicial system, Ciampi also signed Agca’s extradition papers at the request of the Turkish authorities, who required him to serve the outstanding nine years of a 10-year jail sentence after being convicted in his absence of the murder of a Turkish journalist in 1978.

He was handed over to Turkish police, who escorted him onto a military flight to Istanbul airport on Tuesday night.

The pontiff pressed the Italian authorities
to show clemency towards Agca

At the time, a Vatican statement described the Pope as "very happy" about the pardon and said that John Paul II’s satisfaction was all the greater for the pardon being carried out during the Roman Catholic Church's Holy Year, the theme of which was pardon and forgiveness.

The attempt on the Pope's life had come on May 13, 1981 as he drove across St Peter's Square in an open car to hold a general audience with a crowd of 20,000 people.

He was hit by four bullets, wounding him in the stomach, his left hand and his right arm.  Two of his aides were also injured in the attack, as were two bystanders.  John Paul II suffered considerable loss of blood but attributed his survival to the Virgin of Fatima, whose feast day falls on May 13.

Agca was arrested by Italian police as he tried to flee the scene. He was sentenced to life imprisonment two months later, although it was always likely he would be released. It is rare for criminals in Italy to remain incarcerated much beyond 20 years, even for very serious offences.

The gunman, who spent the last part of the sentence in Montacuto prison near Ancona, had kissed John Paul II’s ring when he was visited in his cell in 1983 at the Rebibbia prison in Rome and later described the pontiff as his friend and thanked him for the help he had given to his family in Turkey while he remained imprisoned.

The open vehicle in which Pope John Paul II was
travelling when the assassination attempt took place

Despite three investigations and two trials, mystery has long surrounded the assassination attempt. It was at first believed to be linked to Bulgarian and Soviet secret services as part of a communist plot to kill John Paul II because of his influence in his native Poland, where he had helped to loosen the grip of the communist authorities.

Agca had allegedly told the pontiff when they met in 1983 that he had been instructed to kill him by the Bulgarian secret services on behalf of the Russian KGB but, at a second trial in 1986, prosecutors failed to prove that Bulgarian secret services had hired him on the orders of the Soviet Union.

Meanwhile, a court in Istanbul had sentenced him in absentia to death for his part in the murder of newspaper editor Abdi İpekçi, carried out by a far-right Turkish paramilitary group, the Grey Wolves. The sentence was later commuted to a 10-year jail term.

Bernini's awe-inspiring sweep of colonnades makes
St Peter's Square instantly recognisable

Travel tip:

St Peter’s Square – Piazza San Pietro – took shape under the supervision of the sculptor and architect Gian Lorenzo Bernini between 1656 and 1667, under the direction of Pope Alexander VII, who wanted an appropriate space in front of the basilica "so that the greatest number of people could see the Pope give his blessing, either from the middle of the façade of the church or from a window in the Vatican Palace". Bernini, who had been working on the interior of St Peter's for many years, chose to enclose the square within colonnades, using simple Doric columns so as not to detract from the majesty of Carlo Maderno’s basilica façade but created a sense of awe with the sheer size of the sweep of colonnades on each side. The Egyptian obelisk, erected in 1586, was retained as the centrepiece. One of the two fountains was built by Maderno in 1613 and matched by the addition of a second by Bernini in 1675.

Travel tip:

The coastal town of Ancona, about 7km (4 miles) from Montacuto, is a bustling port that at first glance can appear to lack obvious charm but which possesses much history, bearing witness to its Greek and Roman past. The 18m-high Arch of Trajan, built in honour of the emperor who built the city’s harbour, is regarded as one of the finest Roman monuments in the Marche region. The Duomo – also known as the Basilica Cattedrale Metropolitana di San Ciriaco – is equally impressive, as is the Lazzaretto, the pentagonal building constructed on an artificial island in the 18^th century as a quarantine station designed to protect Ancona from diseases carried by infected travellers.

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