Guglielmo Ferrero - journalist and historian

Nobel prize nominee who opposed Fascism

Guglielmo Ferrero is best known for his five-volume
history of power and collapse of the Roman Empire

The historian, journalist and novelist Guglielmo Ferrero, who was most famous for his five-volume opus The Greatness and Decline of Rome, was born on this day in 1871.

The son of a railway engineer, he was born just outside Naples at Portici but his family were from Piedmont and while not travelling he lived much of his adult life in Turin and Florence.

A liberal politically, he was vehemently opposed to any form of dictatorship and his opposition to Mussolini’s Fascists naturally landed him in trouble. He was a signatory to the writer Benedetto Croce's Anti-Fascist Manifesto and when all liberal intellectuals were told to leave Italy in 1925, he refused. Consequently he was placed under house arrest.

It was only after four years, following appeals by officials from the League of Nations and the personal intervention of the King of Belgium, that he was allowed to leave Italy to take up a professorship at the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva.

Ferrero’s earliest works were in the field of sociology and criminology, inspired by his friendship with Cesare Lombroso, sometimes called the ‘father of modern criminology’, who he met during his studies. Ferrero attended the universities of Pisa, Bologna and Turin. They collaborated on a book called The Female Offender about crime among women.

Cesare Lombroso, the criminologist who
inspired Ferrero's early work

In the course of his work with Lombroso, Ferrero was introduced to Gina Lombroso, Cesare’s daughter, and they subsequently married.

From 1891 to 1894 Ferrero traveled extensively in Europe, working in the libraries of London, Berlin, and Paris on a planned history of justice. As a result of his travels he produced a sociological study entitled Young Europe, in which he noted the differences in societal structure developing in the industrial north compared with the agricultural south of the continent.

It was after musing on how ascendant civilisations could become decadent that he turned his attention to Rome.

His defining work, The Greatness and Decline of Rome was translated into all the major European languages and was a popular success, even though it was scorned by classicists, who took exception to his use of contemporary comparisons and on his attempts at sociological analysis of Roman politics. They did not care either for his assessment of Julius Caesar, usually portrayed as a leader who brought order from chaos, as a major catalyst in the collapse of the Roman Republic.

For the next few years, Ferrero wrote political essays and a number of novels, before turning his attention to the French Revolution, which he analysed as an attempt to establish a new liberal order that unintentionally led to the first modern dictatorship.

Once invited by Theodore Roosevelt, the United States president, to visit him at the White House and to give a number of lectures, Ferraro was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature no fewer than 20 times in six years.

He spent a good deal of his time in his declining years at his villa in Strada in Chianti, in the Tuscan countryside, but was in Mont Pèlerin-sur-Vevey in Switzerland when he died in 1942.

The Royal Palace at Portici, near Naples

Travel tip:

Portici, which lies at the foot of Mount Vesuvius on the Bay of Naples, about 8 km (5 miles) southeast of Naples, is a metropolitan suburb these days but essentially evolved as a port, rebuilt after it was destroyed in the eruption of Vesuvius in 1631. Its neighbour is Ercolano, where excavations revealed the city of Herculaneum, which had disappeared at the same time as Pompeii, following the eruption of 79AD.  Portici is famous for its Baroque royal palace, built as a grand residence by Charles III of Spain, King of Naples, between 1738 and 1742.

The church of San Cristoforo in Strada in Chianti

Travel tip:

Situated almost 300m (984ft) above sea level, Strada in Chianti is a small town that is increasingly favoured as a place to stay when visiting Florence, which is only 20km (12 miles) away to the north, barely half an hour by car and bus. Many Florentines escape to such places in the countryside during the summer, because the heat there is a little less oppressive. The town stages its annual fair in late September. The five parishes once competed in a horse race similar to the Palio di Siena, but they now vie for superiority in a series of games, including football and volleyball, over the course of a week.

More reading:

How Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall became the world's most famous history book

Cesare Lombroso, the first to encourage study of the criminal mind

Ernesto Teodoro Moneta, the historian who was both a soldier and a pacifist

Also on this day:

1914: The birth of Suso Cecchi D'Amico, the scriptwriter behind some of Italy's greatest movies

1948: The birth of Beppe Grillo, the comedian and founder of Italy's new political force, the Five Star Movement

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Giovanna Amati - racing driver

Kidnap survivor who drove in Formula One

Giovanna Amati survived a 75-day kidnap
ordeal when she was 18 years old

Racing driver Giovanna Amati, the last female to have been entered for a Formula One Grand Prix, was born on this day in 1959 in Rome.

The story of Amati’s signing for the Brabham F1 team in 1992 was all the more remarkable for the fact that 14 years earlier, as an 18-year-old girl, she had been kidnapped by a ransom gang and held for 75 days in a wooden cage.

Kidnaps happened with alarming frequency in Italy in 1970s, a period marked by social unrest and acts of violence committed by political extremists, often referred to as the Years of Lead. Young people with rich parents were often the targets and Amati, whose father Giovanni was a wealthy industrialist who owned a chain of cinemas, fitted the bill.

She was snatched outside the family’s villa in Rome in February 1978 and held first in a house only a short distance away and then at a secret location, where she was physically abused and threatened with having her ear cut off while her captors negotiated with her 72-year-old father.

Critics accused Brabham of hiring
Amati as a publicity stunt

Eventually, Giovanni is said to have paid 800 million lira (about $933,000 dollars), for her release, having raised the money through a combination of box office receipts from the Star Wars movie playing at his cinemas, and from the sale of some of his 42-year-old former actress wife’s jewellery.

Seven of the kidnappers were arrested but the ringleader, a gangster from Marseille called Jean Daniel Nieto, evaded the police and got away. He was caught later after contacting Amati, with whom he had allegedly become infatuated, and agreeing to meet her on the fashionable Via Vittorio Veneto in the centre of Rome.

Amati, who has dismissed as untrue newspaper stories at the time that she and Nieto had become romantically involved, returned to normal life and the love of driving she had developed as an eight-year-old, when her father allowed her to drive a tractor on the family estate.

She bought a Honda motorcycle when she was 15 and was inspired to race cars by her friend, the dashing young Roman racing driver Elio de Angelis, with whom she attended a motor racing school.

She first raced professionally in the Formula Abarth series - effectively Formula Four - before graduating to Formula Three. She won some races in both yet it still came as something of bombshell when she was contacted by the then-Brabham boss Bernie Ecclestone in January 1992 and offered a drive in Formula One.

Giovanna Amati failed to qualify in each of
the three Grand Prix she entered

With only weeks to raise the budget she needed to take up the offer, Amati feared she would have to turn down the chance of a lifetime. But at the 11th hour her dream was made possible by an unlikely benefactor, the prime minister, Giulio Andreotti, who had been a friend of her father, by then passed away.

Sadly, her excursion into F1 was not a success.  She failed to qualify for the first three races of the season, in South Africa, Mexico and Brazil, and was promptly sacked, to be replaced by Damon Hill, amid suspicions that, at a time when the Brabham team was desperately in need of exposure and cash, hiring a driver who happened to be an attractive, photogenic young woman was all a publicity stunt.

It was not the end of Amati’s career. She competed in sports and touring cars for a number of years with some success but by the end of the 1990s she was more often sitting alongside TV commentary teams than in the cockpit of a car.  Her compatriot, Lella Lombardi, who started 12 World Championship races between 1974 and 1976, remains in the last female to race in a Formula One Grand Prix.

The Vallelunga autodrome was the home of the Rome
Grand Prix between 1925 and 1991

Travel tip:

Racing drivers in Rome have never had their own home Formula One event but a Rome Grand Prix took place at the Vallelunga circuit between 1925 and 1991. The Vallelunga track is near the town of Campagnano, about 32km (20 miles) north of Rome. It still hosts race meetings and is used by various F1 teams for testing. The city did almost get its first F1 World Championship event in 2013, when plans had been put forward for a street circuit in the EUR district of the city. The idea was eventually abandoned through lack of support and amid fears that it would undermine the supremacy of Monza, home of the Italian Grand Prix, as Italy’s number one racing circuit.

Monza's striking Duomo is one of a number of
attractive architectural features in the city

Travel tip:

Monza, which has hosted the Italian Grand Prix every year since 1950, is situated about 15km (9 miles) north of Milan.  Because so many visitors are interested in little more than cars, Monza’s many notable architectural attractions tend to be under-appreciated. These include the Gothic Duomo, with its white-and-green banded facade, which contains the Corona Ferrea (Iron Crown), which according to legend features one of the nails from the Crucifixion. The crown is on show in the chapel dedicated to the Lombard queen Theodolinda.  The adjoining Museo e Tesoro del Duomo contains one of the greatest collections of religious art in Europe.

More reading:

How Lella Lombardi became the only female racing driver to win a point in a Formula One GP

Maria Teresa de Filippis - the first woman to start a Formula One world championship event

Elio de Angelis - the last of the 'gentleman racers'

Also on this day:

1890: The birth of 20th century still life 'master' Giorgio Morandi

1937: The death of radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi

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Cesare Cremonini - philosopher

Great thinker famous for Galileo ‘denial’

Cesare Cremonini was one of the most
revered Aristotelian philosophers of his day

The philosopher Cesare Cremonini, the contemporary and friend of Galileo Galilei who famously refused to look at the Moon through Galileo’s telescope, died on this day in 1631 in Padua.

Cremonini was considered one of the great thinkers of his time, a passionate advocate of the doctrines of the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle. He was paid a handsome salary by his patron, Alfonso II d’Este, the Duke of Ferrara, and kings and princes regularly sought his counsel.

He struck up a friendship with the poet, Torquato Tasso, while he was studying in Ferrara, and met Galileo in 1550 after he was appointed by the Venetian Republic to the chair of the University of Padua.

The two built a relationship of respect and friendship that endured for many years, despite many differences of opinion, yet in 1610 their divergence of views on one subject created an impasse between them.

It came about when Galileo observed the surface of the Moon through his telescope and proclaimed that he had discovered mountains on the Moon.

But Cremonini said that Aristotle had proved that the Moon could only be a perfect sphere and was having none of Galileo’s claim that it was not true. Galileo invited him to look through the telescope and see for himself but Cremonini refused.

Cremonini first met Galileo
in Padua in 1550

It may be that Cremonini simply refused to countenance the idea that Aristotle’s assertion may have been wrong. An alternative theory is that he feared for the consequences if he aligned himself with Galileo.

The Tuscan polymath was already in trouble with the Roman Inquisition for stating his belief in heliocentrism - the idea that Earth and the other planets in the solar system revolve around the sun,  which contradicted the idea to which the Catholic Church subscribed - based on the wisdom of Aristotle - that the sun revolved around Earth as the centre of the universe.

Cremonini had himself been under the scrutiny of the Inquisition. Indeed, he had been charged with atheism and heresy for propagating Aristotle’s argument that the human soul was mortal. As a citizen of Padua, however, he was protected by the leniency of Venice and had been spared punishment.

It may be that he felt that if he had seen what Galileo saw with his own eyes he would have been obliged to argue in support of his friend and could land himself in trouble again.  Given that Galileo was threatened with being burned at the stake and was held under house arrest for the remainder of his life over his belief in heliocentrism, some may argue that Cremonini was wise not to get involved.

He also had genuine concerns for Galileo’s wellbeing, warning his friend that if he decided to move to Tuscany from Padua it would bring him under the Inquisition's jurisdiction.

Born in Cento, nowadays a town of around 35,000 residents about 35km (22 miles) southwest of Ferrara, Cremonini was chair of natural philosophy and chair of medicine at the University of Padua from 1591 until his death.

He died in 1631 when an outbreak of plague swept Padua. He was buried in the Benedictine monastery of St. Justina of Padua, to which he also willed his possessions.

Cento's 14th century castle, originally built by the Bishop
of Bologna and enlarged by future pope Giulio della Rovere

Travel tip:

Cento, which was part of the Papal States when Cremonini was born, is best known as the birthplace of the Baroque painter Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, better known as Guercino. The town’s main square, the place at which the four ancient roads into the town once converged, is called Piazza Guercino. Monuments around the square include the Palazzo del Governatore, which has a 17th century clock tower, and the Palazzo Comunale, built in 1612 but improved with the addition of an elegant facade in the 18th century. The town has an impressive castle, built in 1378.

Donatello's statue of the condottiero
Gattamelata outside St Anthony's Basilica

Travel tip:

Padua’s well-preserved medieval layout and artistic heritage attract many hundreds of thousands of visitors each year, although it is much quieter than Venice, which is only a little over 40km (25 miles) away.  The presence in the city of Giotto, Donatello and Mantegna support the claim that Padua was the capital of Italian art in the 15th and 16th centuries. The most famous example of Giotto’s work are the frescoes in the Scrovegni Chapel, there are works by Donatello in and outside the Basilica di Sant’Antonio, including the equestrian statue in front of the church, while there are restored frescoes by Mantegna in the Chiese degli Eremitani.

More reading:

Why the philosopher and scientist Galileo Galilei was convicted of heresy

The mysterious death of philosopher Giovanno Pico della Mirandola

How a simple friar laid some of the cornerstones of Western philosophy

Also on this day:

1249: The death of Jacopo Tiepolo, Doge of Venice

1374: The death of the scholar and poet Petrarch


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Alberto di Jorio – Cardinal

Priest spent 60 years accumulating money for the Vatican

Cardinal Alberto di Jorio served the Vatican
Bank for 60 years

Cardinal Alberto di Jorio, who increased the wealth of the Vatican by buying shares in big corporations, was born on this day in 1884 in Rome.

Di Jorio was considered to be the power behind the Istituto per le Opere di Religione, popularly known as the Vatican Bank, which he served for 60 years.

As a young man he had been sent to the prestigious Pontifical Roman Seminary and he became a Catholic priest in 1908.

Di Jorio worked in an administrative role for the Vatican to begin with, but in 1918, when he was still in his early 30s, he took up the position of president of the Istituto per le Opere di Religione - The Institute of Religious Works.

He was directed by Pope Pius XI to form a close working relationship with Bernardino Nogara, a layman working as a financial adviser to the Vatican. Nogara helped di Jorio build up the Vatican’s financial strength.

After the Lateran Treaty settled the Roman Question and made the Vatican an independent state, di Jorio was chosen to run the Vatican Bank and allowed to buy shares in any company, even if it made products that were contrary to Catholic Church teaching.

Pope Paul VI kept Di Jorio in post as head of
the Vatican Bank until he was almost 84

By buying into strong businesses such as General Motors, Standard Oil, IBM and Italgas, the major supplier of gas to Italy at the time, he substantially increased the wealth of the Vatican.

Di Jorio also became secretary of the Sacred College of Cardinals in 1947 and was secretary of the conclave during the election of Pope John XXIII.

Afterwards, the new Pope put his zucchetto - skullcap - on di Jorio’s head, the traditional promise that he would be made a cardinal. Six weeks later di Jorio was made Cardinal-Deacon of the Basilica of Santa Pudenziana.

Di Jorio was later consecrated Titular Archbishop of Castra Nova and he opted to join the order of Cardinal Priests.

He took part in the Second Vatican Council and the conclave of 1963 that elected Pope Paul VI. He continued to be the effective head of the Vatican Bank until 1968 when he was in his 84th year.

In 1976 di Jorio became the oldest member of the College of Cardinals, but he did not participate in the two 1978 conclaves because he was over the age limit.

That same year Pope Paul VI preached a special homily for di Jorio on the 70th  anniversary of his ordination.

Cardinal di Jorio died at his home in Rome in 1979 at the age of 95 and he was buried in a tomb in the Basilica of Santa Pudenziana in Rome.

By night, the Basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano makes a
stunning sight with its ornate neoclassical facade

Travel tip:

The Istituto per le Opere di Religione, the Vatican Bank, was founded in 1942 and its headquarters are inside Vatican City, which was recognised as an independent state inside Italy by the Lateran Treaty in 1929. The treaty is named after the Lateran Palace where the agreement was signed on behalf of King Victor Emmanuel III and Pope Pius IX. The Lateran Palace was the main papal residence in Rome between the fourth and 14th centuries. It is in Piazza San Giovanni in Laterano, next to the Basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano, the first Christian Basilica in Rome and now the cathedral church of the city. Some distance away from the Vatican, the palace is now an extraterritorial property of the Holy See, with similar rights to a foreign embassy. Vatican City covers approximately 40 hectares (100 acres) of land.

Di Jorio's tomb at the Basilica of Santa
Pudenziana in Via Urbana

Travel tip

The Basilica of Santa Pudenziana, where di Jorio is buried, is in Via Urbana to the north of the papal basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore. It is recognised as one of the oldest places of Christian worship in Rome, built in the fourth century and dedicated to Saint Pudentiana, reusing part of an old Roman bath house that can still be seen on the right side of the present structure. A Romanesque bell tower was added in the early 13th century and a Dome was added in the 16th century.

More reading:

How mystery remains over the violent death of 'God's Banker'

Why Pope Paul VI is to be made a saint

The farmer's son from Bergamo who became the 'Good Pope' 

Also on this day:

1610: The mysterious death of Caravaggio

1914: The birth of Gino Bartali, cycling star and secret war hero



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