7 February

Vittoria della Rovere - Grand Duchess of Tuscany

Bride who brought the treasures of Urbino to Florence

Vittoria della Rovere, who became Grand Duchess of Tuscany, was born on this day in 1622 in the Ducal Palace of Urbino. Her marriage to Ferdinando II de’ Medici when she was just 11 years old was to bring a wealth of treasures to the Medici family, which can still be seen today in the Palazzo Pitti and the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. Read more…

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The Bonfire of the Vanities

Preacher Savonarola's war on Renaissance 'excesses'

The most famous 'bonfire of the vanities' encouraged by outspoken Dominican priest Girolamo Savonarola took place in Florence on this day in 1497.  Savonarola campaigned against what he considered to be the artistic and social excesses of the Renaissance, organising large communal bonfires and urging Florentines to come forward with items of luxury or vanity to throw on it. Read more…

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Amedeo Guillet – army officer

Superb horseman helped keep the British at bay

The Italian army officer Amedeo Guillet, the last man to lead a cavalry charge against the British Army, was born on this day in 1909 in Piacenza. His daring actions in Eritrea in January 1941, when he led a daybreak charge towards British artillery in the defence of Mussolini’s East African empire, were remembered by some British soldiers as ‘the most frightening and extraordinary’ episode of the Second World War. Read more…

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Little Tony – pop singer

Star from San Marino enjoyed a long career 

Singer and actor Little Tony was born Antonio Ciacci on this day in 1941 in Tivoli near Rome.  His parents were both born in the Republic of San Marino and so Little Tony was Sammarinese and never applied for Italian citizenship. He became successful in the late 1950s and early 1960s in Britain as the lead singer of Little Tony and His Brothers, calling himself Little Tony after the singer, Little Richard. Read more…

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Vittoria delle Rovere – Grand Duchess of Tuscany

Bride who brought the treasures of Urbino to Florence

Vittoria della Rovere, a portrait by the Flemish
painter Justus Sustermans, circa 1639

Vittoria della Rovere, who became Grand Duchess of Tuscany, was born on this day in 1622 in the Ducal Palace of Urbino.

Her marriage to Ferdinando II de’ Medici was to bring a wealth of treasures to the Medici family, which can still be seen today in the Palazzo Pitti and the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.

Vittoria was the only child of Federico Ubaldo della Rovere, the son of the Duke of Urbino, Francesco Maria. Her mother was Claudia de’ Medici, a sister of Cosimo II de’ Medici.

As a child it was expected that Vittoria would one day inherit the Duchy of Urbino, but Pope Urban VIII convinced Francesco Maria to leave it to the Papacy and the Duchy was eventually annexed to the Papal States.

Instead, at the age of nine, Vittoria received the Duchies of Rovere and Montefeltro and an art collection.

Vittoria had been betrothed to her Medici cousin, Ferdinando, since the age of one and was sent by her mother to be brought up at the Tuscan court.

Vittoria and her husband, Ferdinando II de' Medici,
also by Sustermans, probably painter in around 1660

The marriage was arranged by Ferdinando’s grandmother, Christina of Lorraine, who had been acting as joint regent of the Duchy with Ferdinando’s mother, Maria Maddalena of Austria. Even after Ferdinando II reached his majority in 1628, the dowager Grand Duchess Christina remained the power behind the throne until her death eight years later.

The wedding between Vittoria and Ferdinando took place in 1633, when she was just 11 years old. Her inheritance was included in her dowry which was offered to the Medici family and her art collection became the property of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany.

Vittoria was educated in a convent and the marriage was not consummated until six years later. Vittoria had two sons who both died soon after birth, but in 1642 gave birth to Cosimo de’ Medici, who was styled Grand Prince of Tuscany.

Shortly after the birth of Cosimo, Vittoria is said to have caught her husband in bed with a page and the couple became estranged.

It was not until 1659 that they were reconciled, after which Vittoria gave birth to their last child, Francesco Maria.

The Villa del Poggio Imperiale, as depicted by the 18th
century Florentine printmaker Giuseppe Zocchi

Ferdinando II died in 1670 and was succeeded by his eldest son, who became Cosimo III.

Vittoria vied with her daughter-in-law, Marguerite Louise d’Orleans, for power, but Cosimo took his mother’s side and assigned to her the day-to-day administration of Tuscany. She was formally admitted into the Grand Duke’s Consulta or Privy Council.

Eventually Cosimo III and Marguerite agreed to separate on condition that Marguerite went to live at the Abbey Saint Pierre de Montmartre in Paris and Vittoria was made guardian of her three grandchildren.

In later life Vittoria spent time living in the Villa del Poggio Imperiale in Arcetri to the south of Florence, to which she transferred some of her art collection. She died at Pisa in 1694 at the age of 72 and was buried at the Basilica of San Lorenzo in Florence.

Her titles of Rovere and Montefeltro became extinct when her grandson, Gian Gastone de’ Medici, died in 1737 without an heir, ending the Medici line. Vittoria’s only granddaughter, Electress Palatine Anna Maria Luisa, who had married Elector Johann Wilhelm II, willed the contents of the Medici properties to the Tuscan state in 1743, ensuring Vittoria’s inheritance and the art works collected by the Medici for nearly three centuries remained in Florence.

The Ducal Palace at Urbino is thought to have been completed
by the High Renaissance architect Donato Bramante

Travel tip:

Urbino, where Vittoria was born, is inland from the Adriatic resort of Pesaro, in the Marche region. It is a majestic city on a steep hill and was once a centre of learning and culture, known not just in Italy but also in its glory days throughout Europe. The Ducal Palace, a Renaissance building made famous by The Book of the Courtier by Castiglione, is one of the most important monuments in Italy and is listed as a Unesco World Heritage site.

The Palazzo Pitti in Florence, as seen from the Giardini
Boboli behind the palace, was Vittoria's home

Travel tip:

Palazzo Pitti, where Vittoria lived as Grand Duchess of Tuscany, was originally built for the banker, Luca Pitti, in 1457 in the centre of Florence. He wanted to outshine the Medici family, but they later bought it from his bankrupt heirs and made it their main residence in 1550. Today visitors can look round the richly decorated rooms and see treasures from the Medici collections. The Palatine Gallery contains 16th and 17th century paintings, including works by Raphael. The Treasury, which was once known as the Silver Museum, displays Medici household treasures, such as silver tableware, stone vases and precious jewellery.



More reading:

Gian Gastone de' Medici - the last Medici to rule Florence

Why Cosimo II de' Medici sponsored and supported Galileo Galilei

The life of Claudia de' Medici, Vittoria's mother

Also on this day:

1497: Savonarola lights his Bonfire of the Vanities

1909: The birth of Amedeo Guillet, the last army office to lead a charge against the British

1941: The birth of '60s pop star Little Tony

(Picture credits: Ducal Palace by Zyance; Palazzo Pitti by Stefan Bauer via Wikimedia Commons)


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6 February

Beatrice Cenci - Roman heroine

Aristocrat's daughter executed for murder of abusive father

Beatrice Cenci, the daughter of an aristocrat whose execution for the murder of her abusive father became a legendary story in Roman history, was born on this day in 1577 in the family's palace off the Via Arenula, not far from what is now the Ponte Garibaldi in the Regola district.  When Cenci was beheaded at Castel Sant'Angelo in September 1599, most of the onlookers convinced were convinced an injustice had taken place. Read more…

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Ugo Foscolo – poet

Revolutionary who expressed his feelings in verse

The writer Ugo Foscolo, who became a revolutionary who wrote poetry and novels that reflected the feelings of many Italians during the turbulent years of the French revolution, the Napoleonic Wars and Austrian rule, was born Niccolò Foscolo on this day in 1778 on the island of Zakynthos, now part of Greece, but then part of the Republic of Venice.  Foscolo’s talent was probably not sufficiently appreciated until after his death. Read more...

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Girolamo Benivieni - poet

Follower of Plato, Dante and Savonarola

The poet Girolamo Benivieni, who turned Marsilio Ficino’s translation of Plato’s Symposium into verse, was born on this day in 1453 in Florence. His poem was to influence other writers during the Renaissance and some who came later, including Pietro Bembo and Baldassare Castiglione. At one time, Benivieni fell under the spell of controversial preacher Girolamo Savonarola. Read more...

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Amintore Fanfani - politician

Former prime minister who proposed "third way"

Amintore Fanfani, who was six times Italy’s prime minister and had a vision of an Italy run by a powerful centre-left alliance, was born on this day in 1908.  His commitment to finding a “third way” between communism and the free market became a major influence on centre-left politicians not only in Italy but in other parts of the world. The American president John F Kennedy told colleagues it was reading a book by Fanfani that persuaded him to dedicate his life to politics. Read more…

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Girolamo Benivieni – poet

Follower of Plato, Dante and Savonarola

Girolamo Benivieni, pictured as an old man in
a painting attributed to Ridolfo Ghirlandaio

The poet Girolamo Benivieni, who turned Marsilio Ficino’s translation of Plato’s Symposium into verse, was born on this day in 1453 in Florence.

His poem was to influence other writers during the Renaissance and some who came later.

As a member of the Florentine Medici circle, Benivieni was a friend of the Renaissance humanists Ficino, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola and Angelo Poliziano, commonly known as Polician.

Ficino translated Plato’s Symposium in about 1474 and wrote his own commentary on the work.

Benivieni summarised Ficino’s work in the poem De lo amore celeste - Of Heavenly Love - These verses then became the subject of a commentary by Pico della Mirandola.

As a result of all these works, Platonism reached such writers as Pietro Bembo and Baldassare Castiglione and the English poet, Edmund Spencer.

Benivieni later fell under the spell of Girolamo Savonarola, the fiery religious reformer, and he rewrote some of his earlier sensual poetry as a result. He also translated a treatise by Savonarola into Italian, Della semplicità della vita cristiana - On the Simplicity of the Christian life - and he wrote some religious poetry of his own.

Benivieni's tombstone behind the statue of
Savonarola in the Church of San Marco

He took part in Savonarola’s Bonfire of the Vanities and documented the destruction of art works worth ‘several thousand ducats’ at the time.

Lucrezia de’ Medici supported him in his writing and they shared an interest in the works of Dante Alighieri. In 1506 Benivieni published an edition of Dante’s Divine Comedy with maps by Antonio Manetti and commentaries by Benivieni and Manetti.

He drafted a letter for Lucrezia to send to her brother, Pope Leo X, seeking his assistance in bringing Dante’s body back to Florence from Ravenna where he was buried.

Benivieni also used his connection with Lucrezia to advance his ideas on church reform with her brother, and later with her cousin, Pope Clement VII.

In 1530 he wrote a letter to Pope Clement in defence of Savonarola, seeking to have his reputation restored within the Church.

He died in 1542, a few months before his 90th birthday and was buried in the Church of San Marco in Florence next to his friend, Pico della Mirandola.

The Church of San Marco in Florence is close to where
the fiery priest Girolamo Savonarola lived

Travel tip:

The Church of San Marco, where Girolamo Benivieni and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola are buried together, is in Piazza di San Marco to the north of the Galleria dell’Accademia, which houses Michalangelo’s David. The original tombstone is in Latin. It says: ‘Here lies Giovannni Mirandola; known both at the Tagus and the Ganges and maybe even the antipodes. He died in 1494 and lived for thirty-two years. Girolamo Benivieni, to prevent separate places from disjointing after death the bones of those whose souls were joined by Love while living, provided for this grave where he too is buried. He died in 1542 and lived for eighty-nine years and six months.’ Next to the church is the convent of San Marco, now the Museo Nazionale di San Marco, where Savonarola and the painters, Fra Angelico and Fra Bartolomeo, once lived.

The tomb of Dante Alighieri adjoins the
Basilica of San Francesco in Ravenna

Travel tip:

A tomb built for Dante in the Basilica di Santa Croce in Florence still remains empty. Dante died while living in exile in Ravenna in about 1321. He was buried at the Church of San Pier Maggiore in Ravenna and a tomb was erected there for him in 1483. Florence has made repeated requests for the return of Dante’s remains to the city but Ravenna has always refused.


More reading:

The Bonfire of the Vanities - preacher Savonarola's war on Renaissance 'excesses'

Giovanni Pico della Mirandola – the philosopher who wrote the 'Manifesto of the Renaissance'

Pietro Bembo - the poet and scholar who became Lucrezia Borgia's lover

Also on this day:

1577: The birth of Roman heroine Beatrice Cenci

1778: The birth of the poet and revolutionary Ugo Foscolo

1908: The birth of six-times Italian prime minister Amintore Fanfani


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5 February

Cesare Maldini - footballer and coach

Enjoyed success with AC Milan as player and manager

The footballer and coach Cesare Maldini, who won four Serie A titles and an historic European Cup as a centre half with AC Milan and later coached the club with success in domestic and European football and took the Italian national team to a World Cup quarter-final, was born on this day in 1932 in Trieste.  When Maldini’s Milan beat Benfica 2–1 in London in May 1963, they became the first Italian club to win the European Cup. Read more...

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Saint Agatha of Sicily – Christian martyr

Huge crowds turn out for feast day in Catania

One of the largest festivals in the Roman Catholic calendar takes place on February 5 every year to celebrate the life of the Christian martyr Saint Agatha of Sicily.  In Catania, which adopted her as the patron saint of the city, hundreds of thousands of people line the streets to watch up to 5,000 citizens hauling a silver carriage said to weigh 20 tons (18,140kg), bearing a huge statue and containing the relics of the saint, who died in 251AD. Read more…

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Carolina Morace - footballer and coach

Prolific goalscorer first woman in Italian Football Hall of Fame

Footballer and coach Carolina Morace, the first woman to be inducted into the Italian Football Hall of Fame, was born on this day in 1964 in Venice. Morace played for 20 years for 10 different clubs and was the leading goalscorer in the Women's Serie A on 12 occasions, including a run of 11 consecutive seasons from 1987 to 1998. She also scored 105 goals in 153 appearances for the Italy national team. Read more…

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Giovanni Battista Moroni – artist

Portrait painter left visual record of a changing society

Giovanni Battista Moroni, who was considered one of the greatest portrait painters of the 16th century, died on this day in 1578 while working on a painting at a church near Bergamo in Lombardy.  His legacy of portraits provides an illuminating insight into life in Italy in the 16th century, as he received commissions from merchants trying to climb the social ladder as well as from rich noblemen.  Read more…

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Cesare Maldini - footballer and coach

Enjoyed success with AC Milan as player and manager

Cesare Maldini took Italy to the quarter-finals of the 1998
World Cup in France after success with the Under-21s

The footballer and coach Cesare Maldini, who won four Serie A titles and an historic European Cup as a centre half with AC Milan and later coached the club with success in domestic and European football, was born on this day in 1932 in Trieste.

When, under Maldini’s captaincy, Milan beat Benfica 2–1 at Wembley Stadium in London in May 1963, they became the first Italian club to win the European Cup and Maldini the first Italian captain to lift the trophy.

Maldini’s international career included an 18-month spell as coach of the Italy national team, during which the Azzurri reached the quarter-finals of the 1998 World Cup. He had earlier won three consecutive European championships as coach of the Italy Under-21s.

He is the father of Paolo Maldini, the former AC Milan defender whose record-breaking career spanned 25 years and included no fewer than five winner’s medals from the European Cup and its successor, the Champions League. Cesare’s grandson, Christian - Paolo’s son - is also a professional player for Pro Piacenza in Serie C.

As a child, Cesare Maldini was largely brought up by his mother, Maria. His father, Albino Maldini, who originated from Padua, was a merchant seaman who was often at sea for long periods. The family also owned a small bakery.

Cesare Maldini was captain of the Milan team
 who became Italy's first European champions

Maldini trained for a career as a dental technician but by the age of 20 had made his debut for his home town club, Triestina, then in Serie A. The next season he was appointed the team’s captain.

After two seasons with Triestina, Maldini joined AC Milan, making his debut in September 1954 against his former team, coincidentally. A strong Milan team that included included the great Swedish forwards Nils Liedholm and Gunnar Nordahl, and the Uruguay-born playmaker Juan Alberto Schiaffino, won 4-0.

Maldini was unawed by playing in such company and soon became a regular starter, winning his first league title in his debut season.

He went on to make more than 400 appearances for the club in all competitions, keeping the captain’s armband for five years after being appointed in 1961. He was succeeded in the role by another rossoneri great, Gianni Rivera.

Milan won the European Cup under the coaching of Nereo Rocco, who also hailed from Trieste and formed a strong bond with Maldini. When Rocco left to take charge of Torino in 1966, he took his trusted centre half with him, ending Maldini’s 12-year association with Milan.

Maldini with Enzo Bearzot, to whom he was assistant head
coach at the 1982 World Cup in Spain, which Italy won

After only season in Turin, however, the pair returned to San Siro, Rocco resuming as coach with Maldini his assistant.  In tandem, they won the European Cup again in 1967, defeating Johann Cruyff and his Ajax teammates in the final.

For a while, Maldini was head coach, with Rocco as technical director, and he won the European Cup-Winners’ Cup and the Coppa Italia in the 1972-73 season. Yet he was still sacked the following season after Milan  failed to mount a credible challenge for the Championship.

Maldini went on to coach Foggia, Ternana and then Parma, where he discovered Carlo Ancelotti and won promotion to Serie B, before graduating to international football as assistant to Enzo Bearzot on the Azzurri coaching staff. Two years later, the were in the technical area as Italy won the 1982 World Cup in Spain.

It was as coach of the Italy Under-21s that Maldini found his métier. In his 10 years in that job, as well as steering the Azzurrini to three consecutive European titles in 1992, 1994 and 1996, he brought through countless future stars, including Fabio Cannavaro, Christian Panucci, Filippo Inzaghi, Christian Vieri, Gianluigi Buffon and Francesco Totti.

Paolo Maldini followed his father in
signing for AC Milan

He took over as coach of the senior side when Arrigo Sacchi resigned midway through the 1996-97 season.  It was an achievement to qualify for the 1998 World Cup given the difficult situation Maldini inherited, yet after clinching their place at the finals in France via a play-off, Maldini’s Azzurri exceeded expectations by reaching the last eight.

They remained unbeaten, in fact, going out in a penalty shoot-out to the hosts and eventual champions, France, after a goalless draw in Saint-Denis.

Despite this creditable performance, Maldini was heavily criticised in the Italian media for being too defensive in his outlook, commentators complaining about the omission of the brilliantly talented Gianfranco Zola from his squad and his reluctance to have Roberto Baggio and Alessandro Del Piero, two creative players he did take, on the field at the same time.

As a result, Maldini resigned at the end of the tournament.  After a brief return to the bench at AC Milan for the last few games of the 2000-01 season, he accepted the head coach position with the Paraguay national team for the 2002 World Cup, for which they had already qualified.

At 70 he was at the time the oldest coach to be in charge of a national side at a World Cup tournament. Paraguay were good enough to reach the last 16, where they were unlucky to lose to a last-minute goal against Germany, who went on to reach the final.

Maldini remained in football as a scout and then a TV pundit. He died in Milan in 2016, his funeral at the Basilica di Sant’Ambrogio attended by many former players.  His widow, Marisa, passed away a few months later.

Trieste's vast Piazza Unità d'Italia is the focal point
of the port city in northeastern Italy

Travel tip:

Maldini’s home city, the port of Trieste, capital of the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region, did not officially become part of the Italian Republic until 1954. It had been disputed territory for centuries and after it was granted to Italy in 1920, thousands of the resident Slovenians left. The final border with Yugoslavia was settled in 1975 with the Treaty of Osimo. The area today is one of the most prosperous in Italy and Trieste is a lively, cosmopolitan city and a major centre for trade and ship building.  It also has a coffee house culture dating back to the Hapsburg era. Caffè Tommaseo, in Piazza Nicolò Tommaseo, is the oldest coffee house in the city, dating back to 1830.

The atrium of the Basilica di Sant'Ambrogio in Milan,
where Cesare Maldini's funeral took place

Travel tip:

One of the most ancient churches in Milan, the Basilica di Sant’Ambrogio was built by Saint Ambrose himself between 379–386, while he was Bishop of Milan. One of several new churches he had constructed, it was built in an area where numerous martyrs of the Roman persecutions had been buried. The first name of the church, in fact, was the Basilica Martyrum. It was only later that it was renamed in Saint Ambrose’s honour. Initially, the basilica was outside the city of Milan, but over time the city grew up around it. In 789, a monastery was established within the grounds and for a while two separate religious communities shared the basilica. Its two towers symbolise this division.


More reading:

Enzo Bearzot, the pipe-smoking maestro behind Italy's 1982 World Cup glory

The brilliant career of Paolo Maldini

How Arrigo Sacchi's tactics transformed Italian football

Also on this day:

The Feast Day of Saint Agatha of Sicily

1578: The death of painter Giovanni Battista Moroni

1964: The birth of footballer and coach Carolina Morace

(Picture credits: Piazza Unità by Welleschik; Basilica by Óðinn via Creative Commons)


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4 February

Ugo Betti - playwright

Judge who combined writing with legal career

Ugo Betti, a playwright whose works exploring facets of the human condition are considered by some to be the finest plays written by an Italian after Luigi Pirandello, was born on this day in 1892 in Camerino in Le Marche.  Betti wrote 27 plays, mainly concerned with evil, guilt, justice, atonement and redemption, largely in his spare time alongside a career in the legal profession. Read more...

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Giacomo Facco – composer

The forgotten talent of the musician from Padua

Giacomo Facco, a Baroque composer, was born on this day in 1676 in Marsango, a small town just north of Padua.  Highly regarded during his own lifetime, when he played and composed for the Spanish court for King Philip V, he was completely forgotten about until 1962 when his work was rediscovered by Uberto Zanolli, a musicologist. Read more…

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Eugenio Corti - soldier and writer

Author drew on his experiences on the front line

Eugenio Corti, writer of a bestselling epic novel The Red Horse, died on this day in 2014. The book follows the life of the Riva family in northern Italy from the summer of 1940 through to the 1970s, covering the years of the Second World War and the evolution of Italy's new republic.  Corti fought in Mussolini's army on the Russian Front but was later a member of the Italian Freedom Fighters, fighting against the Nazis. Read more…

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Cesare Battisti – patriot and irredentist

Campaigner for Trentino hailed as national hero

Cesare Battisti, a politician whose campaign to reclaim Trentino for Italy from Austria-Hungary was to cost him his life, was born on this day in 1875 in the region’s capital, Trento. As a member of the Social Democratic Workers’ Party on the assembly of South Tyrol and the Austrian Imperial Council, he pushed for autonomy for Trentino, an area with a mainly Italian-speaking population. He was later executed by the Austrian army. Read more...

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