8 August

Dino De Laurentiis – film producer

Campanian pasta seller helped make Italian cinema famous 

The producer of hundreds of hit films, Agostino ‘Dino’ De Laurentiis was born on this day in 1919 at Torre Annunziata, near Naples in Campania.  He made Italian cinema famous internationally, producing Federico Fellini’s Oscar- winning La Strada in 1954 in Rome.  After moving to the US he enjoyed further success with the film Serpico in 1973.  De Laurentiis was the son of a pasta manufacturer for whom he worked as a salesman during his teens.  While selling pasta in Rome in the 1930s he decided on impulse to enrol at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in the city as an actor.  He quickly realised he had more talent for producing and after gaining experience in the different sectors of the industry made his first film, L’Amore Canta - 'Love Song' - in 1941 when he was just 22.  After serving in the army during the Second World War, De Laurentiis became an executive producer at one of Rome’s emerging film companies, Lux.  Among the films he produced for Lux was Riso Amaro - 'Bitter Rice' - starring Silvana Mangano, whom he later married and had four children with. The film was a box-office success both at home and abroad.  Read more…

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Leo Chiosso – songwriter

Writer of lyrics and scripts was inspired by crime fiction

Prolific songwriter Leo Chiosso was born on this day in 1920 in Chieri, a town to the south of Turin in Piedmont.  He became well known for the songs he wrote in partnership with Fred Buscaglione, a singer and musician, but Chiosso also wrote many scripts for television and cinema.  Chiosso met Buscaglione in 1938 in the nightclubs of Turin, where Buscaglione was working as a jazz singer. The formed a songwriting duo that went on to produce more than 40 songs.  However, their friendship was interrupted by the Second World War.  Chiosso was taken prisoner and deported to Poland, where he became friends with the writer Giovanni Guareschi, while Buscaglione was sent to a US internment camp in Sardinia.  It was only when Chiosso heard Buscaglione playing in a musical broadcast by the Allied radio station in Cagliari that he knew his friend was still alive.  They were reunited in Turin after the war and continued to write songs together. Chiosso was an avid reader of American crime fiction, which inspired his lyrics and also suited Buscaglione’s amiable gangster image.  Their first hit was Che bambola in 1956, which turned humorous tough guy Buscaglione into a celebrity.  A subsequent hit was Love in Portofino, recently recorded by Andrea Bocelli and also the inspiration for one of his albums.  Read more…

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Danilo Gallinari - basketball player

Giant from Lodi province who plays in America’s NBA

Danilo Gallinari, one of two Italian-born players currently active in America’s National Basketball Association, was born on this day in 1988 in Sant’Angelo Lodigiano in Lombardy.  Only seven Italian-born players have participated in the NBA – America’s premier basketball league – since its formation in 1946.  The other Italian player presently with an NBA team is Marco Belinelli, from San Giovanni in Persiceto, near Bologna, who is attached to the Atlanta Hawks.  Gallinari, who stands 6ft 10ins tall, has played for three NBA teams, the latest of which is Los Angeles Clippers.  Previously he had played for New York Knicks, whose coach, Mike D’Antoni, is an American-born former player who is now an Italian citizen, and for the Denver Nuggets.  Gallinari, whose father, Vittorio, played professional basketball for teams in Milan, Pavia, Bologna and Verona, began his career in 2004 with Casalpusterlengo, a third-level Italian team from a town about 25km (15 miles) from his home in Sant’Angelo Lodigiani.  He moved up a tier in 2005 by joining Armani Jeans Milano and then Edimes Pavia, where in 2006 he was named best Italian player in the Italian League Second Division, despite missing half the season through injury.  Read more…

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7 August

Giorgetto Giugiaro - automobile designer

Creative genius behind many of the world’s most popular cars

Giorgetto Giugiaro, who has been described as the most influential automotive designer of the 20th century, was born on this day in 1938 in Garessio, a village in Piedmont about 100km (62 miles) south of Turin.  In a career spanning more than half a century, Giugiaro and his companies have designed around 200 different cars, from the high-end luxury of Aston Martin, Ferrari, Maserati and DeLorean to the mass production models of Fiat, Volkswagen, Hyundai, Daewoo and SEAT.  The Volkswagen Golf and the Fiat Panda, two of the most successful popular cars of all time, were Giugiaro’s concepts.  In 1999, a jury of more than 120 journalists from around the world named Giugiaro “Designer of the Century.”  Giugiaro’s father and grandfather both painted in oils and Giugiaro became passionately interested in art. He enrolled at the University of Turin to study art and technical design.  He took an interest in styling automobiles only after one of his professors suggested that the motor industry would pay big money for someone of his artistic vision who could come up with elegant and practical designs.  Not surprisingly, after he had presented some sketches of cars at a student exhibition in Turin in 1955, it was Fiat - based in Turin - who became aware of his talent. Read more…

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Vincenzo Scamozzi – architect

Follower of Palladio had his own distinctive style

The architect and writer Vincenzo Scamozzi, whose work in the second half of the 16th century had a profound effect on the landscape of Vicenza and Venice, died on this day in 1616 in Venice.  Scamozzi’s influence was later to spread far beyond Italy as a result of his two-volume work, L’idea dell’Architettura Universale - The idea of a universal architecture - which was one of the last Renaissance works about the theory of architecture.  Trained by his father, Scamozzi went on to study in Venice and Rome and also travelled in Europe.  The classical influence of Andrea Palladio is evident in many of the palaces, villas and churches that Scamozzi designed in Vicenza, Venice and Padua.  His work influenced English neoclassical architects such as Inigo Jones and many others who came after him.  Scamozzi was also an important theatre architect and stage set designer. He completed Palladio’s Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza in 1585, adding his own design for a stage set constructed of timber and plaster, using trompe-l'œil techniques to create the appearance of long streets receding to a distant horizon.  Scamozzi was invited to Venice to design housing for the procuratorate of San Marco. He continued the end façade of the Sansovino Library, with its arcaded ground floor, adding an upper floor to provide the required accommodation in the Piazzetta.  Read more…

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Alfredo Catalani - composer

Music from Loreley and La Wally lives on 

Opera composer Alfredo Catalani died on this day in 1893 in Milan at the age of just 39.  He is best remembered for his operas, Loreley, written in 1890, and La Wally, written in 1892, which are still to this day passionately admired by music experts.  Catalani was born in Lucca in Tuscany in 1854 and went to train at the Milan Conservatoire.  His work is said to show traces of Wagner and his style sometimes resembled that of Massenet and Puccini but his early operas were not successful.  Loreley premiered at the Teatro Regio in Turin in 1890. Later it was performed at Covent Garden in London in 1907 and in Chicago in 1919.  La Wally was first performed at Teatro alla Scala in Milan in 1892 to great acclaim.  The opera is best known for its aria, ‘Well then, I’ll go far away’ (Ebben? Ne andro lontana), sung when Wally decides to leave her home forever.  American soprano Wilhelmenia Fernandez sang this aria in the 1981 film, Diva, in which a young Parisian is obsessed with an American soprano.  Hariclea Darclée, the Romanian soprano  who starred in the premiere of La Wally.  In the opera, the heroine throws herself into an avalanche at the end, a scene which is difficult to stage in the theatre and therefore the opera is not performed regularly, but Wally’s principal aria is still sung frequently.  Read more…

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Gerry Scotti - television show host

One-time politician who presented Chi vuol essere milionario?

Gerry Scotti, the host of Italy’s equivalent of Who Wants to be a Millionaire? and one of the most familiar faces on Italian television, was born on this day in 1956 in Camporinaldo, an agricultural village in Lombardy.  The presenter, whose career in television began in the 1980s, was also a member of the Italian Chamber of Deputies between 1987 and 1992, having won the Lombardy 1 district in the Milan college for Bettino Craxi’s Italian Socialist Party.  But he is best known as the face of Chi vuol essere milionario?, which he fronted when it launched in Italy in 2000 and continued in the role after Italy’s entry into the single currency in 2002 required the show to make a subtle change of name.  Originally Chi vuol essere miliardario – billionaire – the title was changed to milionario – millionaire – with a new top prize of 1,000,000 euro replacing the 1,000,000,000 lire of the original.  Scotti continued to host the show until it aired for the last time in Italy in 2011, at which time he held a Guinness World Record for the number of editions presented of the show, which was created for the British network ITV in 1998 and was subsequently exported to 160 countries worldwide.  The son of a printworker at Corriere della Sera in Milan, Scotti – whose real first name is Virginio - studied law at university but dropped out to pursue a career as a radio DJ, working for a number of stations in Milan before being hired as a launch presenter for Radio Deejay, a national network based in Milan.  Read more…

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Giorgetto Giugiaro - automobile designer

The Volkswagen Golf Mk I was one of  Giugiaro's most
successful designs, the car selling 6.8 million units

Creative genius behind many of the world’s most popular cars

Giorgetto Giugiaro, who has been described as the most influential automotive designer of the 20th century, was born on this day in 1938 in Garessio, a village in Piedmont about 100km (62 miles) south of Turin.

In a career spanning more than half a century, Giugiaro and his companies have designed around 200 different cars, from the high-end luxury of Aston Martin, Ferrari, Maserati and DeLorean to the mass production models of Fiat, Volkswagen, Hyundai, Daewoo and SEAT.

The Volkswagen Golf and the Fiat Panda, two of the most successful popular cars of all time, were Giugiaro’s concepts.

In 1999, a jury of more than 120 journalists from around the world named Giugiaro “Designer of the Century.”

Giugiaro formed his own company.
Italdesign, just outside Turin in 1968

Giugiaro’s father and grandfather both painted in oils and Giugiaro became passionately interested in art. He enrolled at the University of Turin to study art and technical design.

He took an interest in styling automobiles only after one of his professors suggested that the motor industry would pay big money for someone of his artistic vision who could come up with elegant and practical designs.

Not surprisingly, after he had presented some sketches of cars at a student exhibition in Turin in 1955, it was Fiat - based in Turin - who became aware of his talent. The company’s technical director, Dante Giacosa, approached Giugiaro and three months later he joined Fiat’s Special Vehicle Design Study Department. He would stay with Fiat for four years, although he struggled to win approval for his designs.

From Fiat, he moved up the ladder of automotive design very quickly, lured away by Nuccio Bertone to join Gruppo Bertone, where Giugiaro delivered an amazing run of successful designs.

The stylish Alfa Romeo Brera is based on another of
Giugiaro's designs for Italdesign

Appointed chief designer at the age of just 22, his work included the Aston Martin DB4 GT, the Ferrari 250 GT Concept, Chevrolet Corvair Testudo Concept, Alfa Romeo Sprint, and the Fiat 850 Spider.

Giugiaro moved to Ghia in 1965, shortly before it was taken over by Alejandro de Tomaso, head of De Tomaso. He stayed there only two years, but it was long enough for him to make his mark with the De Tomaso Mangusta and the Maserati Ghibli, both unveiled in 1966.

Only a year later, Giugiaro moved on again, this time to form a partnership with Aldo Mantovani and a new company, based in Moncalieri, just outside Turin, which would be called Italdesign (later Italdesign Giugiaro.)

Since its founding, Giugiaro’s company has styled an estimated 200 vehicles for clients all over the world.

The Fiat Panda is another massive seller worldwide
that began life as a Giorgetto Giugiaro design

Among the best known have been the Alfa Romeo Alfasud, Lotus Esprit, Volkswagen Golf and Scirocco, Bugatti EB112, Saab 9000, Subaru SVX, and the DeLorean DMC 12. There are few major motor manufacturers around the world for whom Giugiaro or his company have not worked.

Probably the most successful of all has been the Volkswagen Golf Mark I, which was unveiled for the first time in 1974 and went on to sell 6.8 million units.

Giugiaro’s favoured styles in the early days of Italdesign tended to accentuate curves, as characterised by the DeTomaso Mangusta and the Maserati Ghibli. Later he became more concerned with straight lines, as characterised by the VW designs for the Passat and Scirocco as well as the Golf. Other designers often followed suit. A high-sided taxi he conceived for the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1978 did not enter production but became the influence for a generation of MPVs.

Like the Golf, Giugiaro’s Fiat Panda sold in huge numbers. Conceived to be minimalist, aesthetic and functional, the model continued in production for 32 years with barely an upgrade in that period.

His design talents have not stopped at cars. Giugiaro has also designed cameras for Nikon, firearms for Beretta, and motorcycles for Ducati, and Suzuki.

The castle at Moncalieri, once a royal residence for the
Savoys, now houses a Carabinieri training college

Travel tip:

Moncalieri, where Giugiaro established the Italdesign company with his partner Aldo Mantovani, has a population of almost 58,000 people. About 8km (5 miles) south of Turin within the city’s metropolitan area, it is notable for its castle, built in the 12th century and enlarged in the 15th century, which became a favourite residence of King Victor Emmanuel II and subsequently his daughter, Maria Clotilde. The castle now houses a prestigious training college for the Carabinieri, Italy’s quasi-military police force.

The village of Garessio sits in a valley in the Ligurian Alps,
close to the Langhe wine region

Travel tip:

Garessio, where Giugiaro was born, is located in the Ligurian Alps, on the border between Liguria and Piemonte provinces. In medieval times it was an important staging post for the salt trade and eventually salt brought over the Ligurian Alps from the Mediterrean Sea was re-packed and sold in Garessio for distribution to Northern Europe.  It is close to the Langhe wine region, which produces famous wines such as Barolo and Dolcetto, and is famous for the Aqua San Bernardo mineral water, which is renowned to have healing properties. At the turn of the century, Garessio built its fame as a spa town. It has a well preserved historical town centre.

More reading:

Why Giuseppe 'Nuccio' Bertone is known as the 'godfather of Italian car design'

Dante Giacosa, the engineer behind the iconic Fiat Cinquecento

How 'Pinin' Farina became a giant of the car industry

Also on this day:

1616: The death of architect Vincenzo Scamozzi 

1893: The death of opera composer Alfredo Catalani

1956: The birth of TV presenter Gerry Scotti


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6 August

Domenico Modugno – singer and songwriter

Artist who gave us a song that conjures up Italy

Domenico Modugno, who was one of the writers of the iconic Italian song, Volare, died on this day in 1994 in Lampedusa, Sicily.  Modugno wrote Volare with Franco Migliacci and performed it in the San Remo music festival in 1958 with Johnny Dorelli.  Sometimes referred to as Nel blu dipinto di blu, the song won San Remo and became a hit all over the world.  It was the Italian entry in the 1958 Eurovision song contest. It came only third, yet received two Grammy Awards and sold more than 22 million copies.  Modugno was born in 1928 at Polignano a Mare near Bari in Apulia. After completing his military service he enrolled in drama school and had a number of parts in films while still studying.  The success of Volare proved to be the turning point in his career. He won the San Remo music festival again in 1959 and came second in 1960.  He also represented Italy in the Eurovision song contest for a second time in 1959.  In 1962 he won San Remo for a third time and represented Italy at Eurovision again in 1966 with his song Dio come ti amo. It was recorded in Italian and also in English as Oh How Much I Love You by other artists.  Read more…

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Barbara Strozzi – composer

One of few 17th century women to have her own music published

The talented singer and composer Barbara Strozzi was baptised on this day in 1619 in the Cannaregio district of Venice.  Strozzi had been recognised by the poet and librettist Giulio Strozzi as his adopted daughter. It was thought at the time she was likely to have been an illegitimate daughter he had fathered with his servant, Isabella Garzoni.  Giulio Strozzi encouraged his adopted daughter’s musical talent, even creating an academy where she could perform to an audience. She became one of only a few women in the 17th century to publish her own compositions.  The Academy of the Unknown - Accademia degli Incogniti - was a circle of intellectuals in Venice that met to discuss literature, ethics, aesthetics, religion and the arts. They were supporters of Venetian opera in the late 1630s and 1640s. Giulio Strozzi formed a musical sub-group, Academy of the Like-Minded, Accademia degli Unisoni, where Barbara Strozzi performed as a singer and even suggested topics for discussion.  In addition to her vocal talent she showed herself to be a gifted composer and so her father arranged for her to study with the composer, Francesco Cavalli.  Read more…

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Battle of Meloria

Naval loss that sparked decline of Pisa as trading power

The decline of the Republic of Pisa as one of Italy’s major naval and commercial powers began with a catastrophic defeat at the Battle of Meloria on this day in 1284.  A fleet of 72 galleys was routed by the forces of the rival Ligurian Sea port of Genoa in a confrontation fought close to the islet of Meloria, about 10km (6 miles) off the coast, near what is now Livorno.  More than 5,000 Pisan crew were killed with 10 galleys sunk and at least 25 captured before other vessels fled the scene and the Genovese claimed victory.  Pisa and Genoa had once been allies, joining forces to drive the Saracens out of Sardinia in the 11th century, but subsequently became fierce rivals for trade, particularly from the eastern Mediterranean and the Byzantine Empire.  The city’s participation in the Crusades secured valuable commercial positions for Pisan traders in Syria, and thereafter Pisa grew in strength to rival Genoa and Venice.  However, in the 13th century, Genoa conquered numerous settlements in Crimea, establishing a colony at Caffa. The Byzantine Empire granted free trading rights to Genoa, increasing their wealth and simultaneously reducing commercial opportunities for Venice and Pisa.  Read more…

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5 August

Antonio Barberini - cardinal

Pope’s nephew amassed fortune and became patron of the arts

Catholic cardinal, military leader and patron of the arts Antonio Barberini was born on this day in 1607 in Rome.  As one of the cardinal-nephews of Pope Urban VIII he helped to shape the politics, religion, art and music of 17th century Italy and took part in many papal conclaves.  He is sometimes referred to as Antonio the Younger, or Antonio Barberini Iuniore, to distinguish him from his uncle, Antonio Marcello Barberini.  Antonio was the youngest of six children born to Carlo Barberini and Costanza Magalotti. Like his brothers, he was educated at the Collegio Romano.  His brother, Francesco Barberini, became Grand Inquisitor of the Roman Inquisition.  His uncle, Maffeo Barberini, was elected as Pope the day after Antonio’s 16th birthday and became Pope Urban VIII.  Urban VIII was notorious for nepotism and he appointed Antonio as a cardinal just after his 20th birthday.  Nepotism was commonplace among popes from the Middle Ages up to the 17th century. The word derives from the Latin nepos (Italian: nipote), meaning nephew, to describe the practice among popes, who had taken vows of chastity and therefore could have no legitimate children, of appointing nephews to key positions.  Read more…

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Felice Casson - politician and magistrate

His investigations revealed existence of Operation Gladio

Felice Casson, the magistrate whose investigations exposed the existence of the NATO-backed secret army codenamed Gladio, was born on this day in 1953 in Chioggia, near Venice.  A former mayor of Venice and a representative of the Democratic Party in the Italian Senate, Casson devoted much of his career in the judiciary to fighting corruption and rooting out terrorists.  In 1984, his interest in terrorism led him to examine the unsolved mystery of the Peteano bombing in 1972, in which three Carabinieri officers were killed by a car bomb placed under an abandoned Fiat 500 in a tiny hamlet close to the border with Yugoslavia in the province of Gorizia.  Casson discovered flaws in the original investigation into the bombing, which at the time was blamed on the left-wing extremist group the Red Brigades, who would later be responsible for the kidnap and murder of Aldo Moro, a former prime minister.   Afterwards, Italy launched a nationwide crackdown on left-wing organisations and made more than 200 arrests.  But Casson found no record of any investigation of the scene of the bombing and discovered that a report claiming the explosives used in the bomb were the same as previously used in Red Brigades activity was a forgery.  He reopened the case and his new investigation established that the explosive used was called C4, a very powerful agent of which large stocks were kept by NATO.  Read more…

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Franco Lucentini – author

Writer was one half of a famous literary partnership

The novelist Franco Lucentini, who achieved success with Carlo Fruttero in a remarkable literary association, died on this day in 2002 in Turin.  A news correspondent and editor, Lucentini met Fruttero in 1953 in Paris and they started working together as journalists and translators.  But they were best known for the mystery thrillers they produced together, which they composed in a businesslike manner.  After choosing a subject they would take it in turns to write and then edit the material until a novel was complete.  Their most popular books were The Sunday Woman (La donna della domenica), which was later made into a film and The D Case (La verita sul caso D), which was based on an unfinished work by Charles Dickens, The Mystery of Edwin Drood.   Lucentini fell foul of the Fascist regime while studying Philosophy at the University of Rome because of distributing anti-war messages among his fellow students and had to spend two months in prison.  But after the Second World War he was hired by the Allies to work as a junior editor for their news agency in Naples. Lucentini then went on to work in Rome for Italy's ANSA news agency.  Read more…

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Antonio Cesti – opera composer

Singer and organist wrote operas and church music

Composer Pietro Marc’Antonio Cesti was baptised on this day in 1623 in Arezzo in Tuscany. It was also probably the date of his birth.  One of the leading composers of the 17th century, Cesti is said to have written about 100 operas, although only 15 are known of today.  He joined the order of Friars Minor, or Franciscans, a Catholic religious group founded by St Francis of Assisi in 1637.  Cesti studied first in Rome and then moved to Venice, where his first known opera, Orontea, was produced in 1649.  In 1652 he became chapel master to Archduke Ferdinand of Austria at Innsbruck and from 1669 he was vice chapel master to the imperial court in Vienna.  Throughout the 17th century his operas were widely performed in Italy. His most famous operas, Il pomo d’oro, Dori, and Orontea, have survived to this day.  Il pomo d’oro was a lavish production, written for the wedding of Emperor Leopold I in 1666 in Vienna.  An important manuscript collection of 18 secular and three sacred cantatas by Cesti are preserved in Oxford.  His cantatas and religious works show Roman influences, whereas his operas demonstrate the influence of the Venetian school and foreshadow the operatic developments that were to come in the 18th century.  Read more…

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Antonio Barberini – Cardinal

Pope’s nephew amassed fortune and became patron of the arts

Carlo Maratta's portrait of Antonio
Barberini as an older man

Catholic cardinal, military leader and patron of the arts Antonio Barberini was born on this day in 1607 in Rome.

As one of the cardinal-nephews of Pope Urban VIII he helped to shape the politics, religion, art and music of 17th century Italy and took part in many papal conclaves.

He is sometimes referred to as Antonio the Younger, or Antonio Barberini Iuniore, to distinguish him from his uncle, Antonio Marcello Barberini.

Antonio was the youngest of six children born to Carlo Barberini and Costanza Magalotti. Like his brothers, he was educated at the Collegio Romano.  His brother, Francesco Barberini, became Grand Inquisitor of the Roman Inquisition

His uncle, Maffeo Barberini, was elected as Pope the day after Antonio’s 16th birthday and became Pope Urban VIII.

Urban VIII was notorious for nepotism and he appointed Antonio as a cardinal just after his 20th birthday.  Nepotism was commonplace among popes from the Middle Ages up to the 17th century. The word derives from the Latin nepos (Italian: nipote), meaning nephew, to describe the practice among popes, who had taken vows of chastity and therefore could have no legitimate children, of appointing nephews to key positions.

Antonio was made papal legate in Avignon, where he forged some powerful connections. In 1636 he accepted the post of Crown-Cardinal-Protector of the Kingdom of France.

Barberini in a portait dated at around 1725,
when he would have been 18 years old

It has been estimated that Antonio accumulated more than 63 million scudi in personal wealth during the 21-year pontificate of Urban VIII.

Antonio and his brother, Taddeo, led the Pope’s forces to occupy Castro after Urban VIII started a feud with the Farnese family. But their victory over the Farnese was short lived and they suffered a series of losses during which Antonio himself was nearly captured.

The Pope was forced to sign a peace treaty with the Farnese to prevent them from marching on Rome.

After Innocent X was elected as Pope, Antonio and Taddeo were accused of financial abuses and had to go into exile in Paris under the protection of Antonio’s supporter, Cardinal Mazarin.

The next Pope, Alexander VII, made Antonio the Cardinal Bishop of Frascati and Louis XIV of France made him the Archbishop of Rheims.

Antonio had a number of mistresses, including one he is said to have had whipped for flaunting herself during Carnevale and another who died mysteriously while carrying his child. There were also allegations that he had homosexual relationships, in particular with the castrato singer Marc'Antonio Pasqualini. But in later life he changed his lifestyle and became deeply religious.

Bernini's monument to Barberini in the
church of San Giovanni dei Fiorentini

He was patron to many composers, musicians, architects and artists. The composer Marco Marazzoli wrote music for him and dedicated his Fiori Musicali to Antonio in 1635.

Antonio commissioned Gian Lorenzo Bernini to design the Palazzo del Propaganda Fide in Rome, but while Antonio was in exile, Bernini was replaced by Francesco Borromini, who had Bernini’s chapel demolished and replaced it with one built to his own design. Antonio and his brothers also commissioned the Teatro delle Quattro Fontane, an opera house built in 1632 near Piazza Barberini.

Antonio was a great admirer of Caravaggio, who died when he was just three years old. His extensive art collection contained many paintings by Caravaggio. He also commissioned Lorenzo Ottoni to complete a number of Barberini family sculptures for him.

Antonio died at Nemi near Rome in 1671, two days before his 64th birthday. There is a monument to him by Bernini in the church of San Giovanni dei Fiorentini in Rome.

An 18th century engraving of the Palazzo di Propaganda
Fide in Rome by Giuseppe Vasi

Travel tip:

Palazzo di Propaganda Fide, commissioned by Antonio Barberini, is at the southern end of Piazza di Spagna in Rome close to the Basilica Sant’Andrea delle Fratte. The main façade was designed by Bernini, but the side looking out on to Via di Propaganda was designed by Borromini. The chapel of the Biblical Magi was built by Borromini. One of the most famous examples of Italian baroque architecture, the palace was built to house the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples and since 1929 it has been an extraterritorial property of the Holy See.

Corso Vittorio Emanuele is one of the
main streets in Nemi

Travel tip:

Nemi, the town where Antonio Barberini died, is in the Alban Hills overlooking Lake Nemi, a volcanic crater lake. It is about 30km (19 miles) southeast of Rome. The Roman emperor Caligula built several large barges for use on the lake. They were rediscovered during the Renaissance period but attempts to raise them from the bottom of the lake proved unsuccessful. Mussolini ordered them to be salvaged in 1929 but most of them were destroyed by fire in 1944, either deliberately by the retreating German army, or accidentally by squatters who had taken refuge in the building that housed them. The surviving remnants and replicas of Caligula’s barges can be seen in the Museo Nazionale at the Palazzo Massimo in Rome. Nemi is also famous for the wild strawberries that grow on the side of the volcanic crater in ideal conditions that make them taste sweet.

More reading:

Why Grand Inquisitor Francesco Barberini refused to condemn Galileo as a heretic

The genius of Gian Lorenzo Bernini

How Pope Urban VIII's extravagance ended in disgrace

Also on this day:

1623: The birth of composer Marc'Antonio Cesti

1953: The birth of magistrate Felice Casson, who exposed secretive Operation Gladio

2002: The death of thriller writer Franco Lucentini


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4 August

Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici - politician

Art enthusiast who was Botticelli’s major patron

The Florentine banker and politician Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici, who was a significant figure in Renaissance art as the main sponsor and patron of the painter Sandro Botticelli, was born on this day in 1463.  The great-grandson of Giovanni di Bicci de’ Medici, the founder of the Medici bank, Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco belonged to the junior, sometimes known as ‘Popolani’ branch of the House of Medici.  In 1476, when he and his brother, Giovanni, were still boys, their father, Pierfrancesco de’ Medici the Elder, died. They became wards, effectively, of their cousin, Lorenzo il Magnifico - Lorenzo the Magnificent - a member of the senior branch of the family and the effective ruler of Florence.  Relations between the two branches had been tense for some years and were not helped when Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco discovered, on becoming an adult, that Lorenzo had plundered a considerable sum from he and his brother’s joint inheritance in order to stave off a threatened bankruptcy of the family’s financial empire.  Read more…

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Giovanni Spadolini - politician

The first non-Christian Democrat to lead Italian Republic

Giovanni Spadolini, who was the Italian Republic’s first prime minister not to be drawn from the Christian Democrats and was one of Italy's most respected politicians, died on this day in 1994.  In a country where leading politicians and businessmen rarely survive a whole career without becoming embroiled in one corruption scandal or another, he went to the grave with his reputation for honesty intact.  Although he was an expert on Italian unification and became a professor of contemporary history at the University of Florence when he was only 25, a background that gave him a deep knowledge of Italian politics, he first built a career as a journalist.  He became a political columnist for several magazines and newspapers, including Il Borghese, Il Mondo and Il Messaggero, and was appointed editor of the Bologna daily II Resto del Carlino in 1955, at the age of 30.  In 1968, having doubled Il Resto’s circulation, he left Bologna to become the editor at Corriere della Sera, in Milan, where he remained until 1972.  It was while editing the Corriere that he became known for his anti-extremist stance, condemning violent student activists on the left and terrorists on the right in equal measure.  Read more…

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Pope Urban VII

Pope for just 12 days but introduced world's first smoking ban

Pope Urban VII was born Giovanni Battista Castagna on this day in 1521 in Rome.   Although his 12-day papacy was the shortest in history, he is remembered as being the first person in the world to declare a ban on smoking.  He was against the use of tobacco generally, threatening to excommunicate anyone who ‘took tobacco in the porchway of, or inside a church, whether it be by chewing it, smoking it with a pipe, or sniffing it in powdered form through the nose’.  The ban is thought to have been upheld for the most part until 1724, when Pope Benedict XIII, himself a smoker, repealed it.  Castagna was the son of a nobleman of Genovese origin and studied in universities all over Italy. He obtained a doctorate in civil law and canon law from the University of Bologna.  He served as a constitutional lawyer to Pope Julius III and was then ordained a priest.  He took part in the Council of Trent and then served as an apostolic nuncio in Spain for four years.  Castagna was also Governor of Bologna, apostolic nuncio to Venice and then Papal Legate to Flanders and Cologne.  He is remembered for his charity to the poor, for subsidising public works throughout the papal states and for being against nepotism.  Pope Gregory XIII appointed him Cardinal-Priest of San Marcello in 1583.  Read more…


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