7 February

The Bonfire of the Vanities

Preacher Savonarola's war on Renaissance 'excesses'

The most famous 'bonfire of the vanities' encouraged by the 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, preaching with fanatical passion against any material possession that might tempt the owner towards sin.  He became notorious for organising large communal bonfires in the tradition of San Bernardino of Siena, urging Florentines to come forward with items of luxury or vanity or even simply entertainment that might draw them away from their faith.  Savonarola arrived in Florence from his home town of Ferrara in 1482, entering the convent of St Mark. With Lorenzo de' Medici at the height of his power, Savonarola became disturbed by what he perceived as the moral collapse of the Catholic church.  For a number of years he confined himself to speaking about repentance to congregations of believers in the parishes around Florence but on returning to the city in 1490 he began to campaign with more vigour about what he saw as the need for a return to piety.   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.  He had formed a group with his brothers, Alberto and Enrico, in 1957, calling himself Little Tony after the singer, Little Richard.  The brothers were signed up by a record company, who released their versions of a series of American songs in Italy.  After being invited to appear on a British TV show, they released their first single in the UK , ‘I can’t help it’, which was their 11th in Italy. Their third single, ‘Too Good’, reached No 19 in the UK singles chart in 1960.  The group returned to Italy to appear at the Sanremo Festival where they came second. Then Little Tony began working as a solo singer and film actor.  His hit song Cuore matto - Crazy Heart - was number one for nine consecutive weeks in 1967.  In 1975 he recorded an album Tony canta Elvis - Tony Sings Elvis - paying tribute to Elvis Presley.  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, 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.  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.  Read more…

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Amedeo Guillet – army officer

Superb horseman helped keep the British at bay

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 1941 were remembered by some British soldiers as ‘the most frightening and extraordinary’ episode of the Second World War.  It had seemed as though the British invasion of Mussolini’s East African empire was going like clockwork. But at daybreak on January 21, 250 horsemen erupted through the morning mist at Keru, galloping straight towards British headquarters and the artillery of the Surrey and Sussex Yeomanry.  Red Italian grenades that looked like cricket balls exploded among the defenders and the guns that had been pointing towards Italian fortifications had to be quickly turned to face a new enemy.  The horsemen later disappeared into the network of wadis - ravines - that crisscrossed the Sudan-Eritrean lowlands.  Guillet’s actions at Keru helped the Italian army regroup and go on to launch their best actions in the entire war. Guillet was to live on until the age of 101 and become one of the most decorated people in Italian history.  Read more…


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6 February

NEW - 1783 Calabria Earthquakes

Series of powerful tremors killed at least 35,000

The Calabrian peninsula of southwest Italy was waking up to the unfolding horror of a sequence of five deadly earthquakes on this day in 1783.  A major tremor destroyed the town of Oppido Mamertina in what is now the province of Reggio Calabria on 5 February, killing almost 1,200 residents, followed by another just after midnight on 6 February, setting off a tsunami that claimed still more lives.   The effects of the first quake  - which has been classified at an estimated 7.0 on the Richter magnitude scale - were felt over a much wider area, however, with countless land and rockslides.  The whole of the island of Sicily is said to have shaken.  In total, it is thought some 180 villages were effectively destroyed, with far more buildings reduced to rubble than remained standing. The city of Messina, on the northeast tip of Sicily, was seriously hit and many casualties were reported there also.  The city’s medieval Duomo was badly damaged, while a tsunami caused the walls of the harbour to collapse.  This first shock was thought to have claimed in the region of 25,000 lives across the large area affected as buildings simply collapsed.  Read more…

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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.  Cenci's short life ended with her beheading in front of Castel Sant'Angelo on 11 September 1599, with most of the onlookers convinced that an injustice had taken place.  Her father, Francesco Cenci, had a reputation for violent and immoral behaviour that was widely known and had often been found guilty of serious crimes in the papal court. Yet where ordinary citizens were routinely sentenced to death for similar or even lesser offences, he was invariably given only a short prison sentence and frequently bought his way out of jail.  Romans appalled at this two-tier system of justice turned Beatrice into a symbol of resistance against the arrogance of the aristocracy and her story has been preserved not only in local legend but in many works of literature.  In the early 19th century, Percy Bysshe Shelley, who was living in Italy, was so moved by her story that he turned it into a drama in verse entitled The Cenci: A Tragedy in Five Acts.  Read more…

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Ugo Foscolo – poet

Revolutionary who expressed his feelings in verse

Writer Ugo Foscolo 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 went on to become 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. His talent was probably not sufficiently appreciated until after his death, but he is particularly remembered for his book of poems, Dei Sepolchri - Of the Sepulchres.  After the death of his father, Andrea, who was an impoverished Venetian nobleman, the family moved back to live in Venice.  Foscolo went on to study at Padova University and by 1797 had begun to write under the name Ugo Foscolo.  While at University he took part in political discussions about the future of Venice and was shocked when Napoleon handed it over to the Austrians in 1797.  He denounced this action in his novel Ultime lettere di Jacopo Ortis - The Last Letters of Jacopo Ortis.  Foscolo moved to Milan where he published a book of sonnets. Still putting his faith in Napoleon, he decided to serve as a volunteer in the French army.  Read more…

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Amintore Fanfani - politician

Former prime minister who proposed "third way"

Amintore Fanfani, a long-serving politician who was six times Italy’s prime minister and had a vision of an Italy run by a powerful centre-left alliance of his own Christian Democrat party and the socialists, was born on this day in 1908.  A controversial figure in that he began his political career as a member of Mussolini’s National Fascist Party, he went on to be regarded as a formidable force in Italian politics, in which he was active for more than 60 years, admired for his longevity and his energy but also for his principles.  Throughout his career, or at least the post-War part of it, he was committed to finding a “third way” between collective communism and the free market and 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, whose friendship he valued, told colleagues that it was reading Fanfani’s book, Catholicism, Protestantism and Capitalism, that persuaded him to dedicate his life to politics. They last met in Washington in November 1963, just two weeks before Kennedy was assassinated.   Although he opposed communism, Fanfani’s position was generally in favour of socio-economic intervention by the state and against unfettered free-market capitalism.  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.  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 Politian.  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.  Read more…


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1783 Calabria Earthquakes

Before photography was possible, copper plate engravings
served to record major events, including the 1783 earthquakes

Series of powerful tremors killed at least 35,000

The Calabrian peninsula of southwest Italy was waking up to the unfolding horror of a sequence of five deadly earthquakes on this day in 1783.

A major tremor destroyed the town of Oppido Mamertina in what is now the province of Reggio Calabria on 5 February, killing almost 1,200 residents, followed by another just after midnight on 6 February, setting off a tsunami that claimed still more lives.

The effects of the first quake  - which has been classified at an estimated 7.0 on the Richter magnitude scale - were felt over a much wider area, however, with countless land and rockslides.  The whole of the island of Sicily is said to have shaken.

In total, it is thought some 180 villages were effectively destroyed, with far more buildings reduced to rubble than remained standing. The city of Messina, on the northeast tip of Sicily, was seriously hit and many casualties were reported there also.

The city’s medieval Duomo was badly damaged, while a tsunami caused the walls of the harbour to collapse.

Another engraving of the late 18th century depicts the
turbulence in the Strait of Messina caused by the quakes

This first shock was thought to have claimed in the region of 25,000 lives across the large area affected as buildings ill-equipped to withstand such violent shaking, strong enough to knock people off their feet, simply collapsed.

Only a few hours later, just after midnight on 6 February a second major tremor occurred closer to Messina, this time put at a magnitude of 6.2. This caused a substantial rockslide into the sea near the coastal town of Scilla on the Italian mainland, which in turn set off a tsunami.  Many residents in Scilla, fearful of their homes collapsing after the 5 February quake, had taken refuge on the beach only to be swept away by the giant wave. It is reckoned around 1,500 died in Scilla.

Further up the peninsula, in the area of the Serre Mountains, about 40km (25 miles) from the first quake, a third one took place, more powerful than the second at 6.6 magnitude, at approximately 1.10pm on 7 February, flattening a string of villages between the towns of Acquaro and Soriano Calabro. Again, there were hundreds of casualties.

A period of less violent shocks followed until, on 1 March, another significant quake, put at magnitude 5.9, struck near the town of Filadelfia, about 30km (19 miles) south of Lamezia Terme. Although it took place some 100km (62 miles) northwest of Scilla and the seat of the first tremors, it was later determined to have been part of the same seismic sequence.

This engraving shows the tsunami crashing into the
fishing village of Scilla, with boats capsizing

Damage and casualties this time were light, but that could not be said of the fifth major event, in the space of just over seven weeks, that struck on 28 March, just a few kilometres from Filadelfia, between the towns of Girifalco and Borgia. This tremor has been recorded at 7.0 magnitude, just as powerful as the first, with many villages destroyed and a further large number of residents killed.

The total number of deaths resulting from the series of earthquakes is put at 35,000 at least, although some estimates point to a figure nearer 50,000. Either way, it is one of the four deadliest seismic events in Italian history in which estimates of casualty numbers are available.

Modern science knows that the cause of earthquakes and other seismic activity in Sicily and southern Italy is caused by the collision of the African and Eurasian plates - two of the seven largest tectonic plates that make up the surface of the earth.

In the 18th century, however, there were different explanations, including one theory that there were ‘fire channels’ inside the earth, of which volcanoes were the manifestation on the surface, and that chemical reactions between gas, water and metal elements in subterranean voids were the cause of earthquakes and eruptions.

This seemed to be supported by another phenomenon that occurred at around the same time in the form of a sulfuric fog that covered much of Europe in the summer of 1783, which scientists thought was due to gas released by the Calabrian quakes although contemporary studies suggest the two things were not connected.

It is thought, instead, that the fog was the result of sulfuric gases released by a volcanic eruption in Iceland of which mainland Europeans had no knowledge.

The ancient fishing village of Chianalea sits on the water's
edge in the shadow of the Castello Ruffo

Travel tip:

The resort town of Scilla on the north-facing Calabrian coast, situated about 23km (14 miles) north of the city of Reggio Calabria, grew up around a picturesque fishing village sheltered by cliffs and a rocky spur, atop which sits the Castello Ruffo, originally a sixth-century fortification but which has been destroyed and rebuilt a number of times.  Beneath is the sandy beach of Marina Grande, now lined with hotels. The main part of the expanded town sits above the cliffs on a plateau. On the other side of the promontory is the less developed village of Chianalea, where houses cling to the water’s edge along a single, cobbled thoroughfare.

Messina's cathedral and bell tower have had to be
rebuilt on several occasions due to disasters and war

Travel tip:

Messina, the Sicilian city separated from mainland Italy by the Strait of Messina, is the third largest city on the island and home to a large Greek-speaking community. The 12th century Duomo - the cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta - has a bell tower which houses one of the largest astronomical clocks in the world, built in 1933. Originally built by the Normans, the cathedral, which still contains the remains of King Conrad, ruler of Germany and Sicily in the 13th century, suffered much damage in 1783 and then had to be almost entirely rebuilt following the massive earthquake that struck in 1908, and again in 1943, after a fire triggered by Allied bombings.

More reading:

How Italy's worst earthquake may have killed 200,000

The earthquake in Sicily that led to an architectural rebirth

The Naples earthquake of 1626

Also on this day:

1453: The birth of poet Girolamo Benivieni

1577: The birth of Beatrice Cenci, Roman heroine

1788: The birth of poet Ugo Foscolo

1908: The birth of politician Amintore Fanfani 


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5 February

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 an incredible run of 11 consecutive seasons from 1987 to 1998.   She won the Italian championship 12 times with eight of her clubs and scored an extraordinary 550 goals at an average of three in every two games at her peak, with a further 105 goals in 153 appearances for the Italy national team.  Four of those came in one match when Italy Women played England in a curtain-raiser to the pre-season Charity Shield game at Wembley in 1990, which she described as one of her proudest moments.  Morace, the daughter of a former officer in the Italian Navy, grew up a stone’s throw away from Venice's football ground at Sant' Elena. She joined her first club in Venice when she was 11 years old, her ability to score goals allowing her to be accepted quickly in boys' teams.  She joined her first club in Venice when she was 11 years old.  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 just outside Bergamo in the northern region of Lombardy.  His wonderful 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.  Moroni was born at Albino near Bergamo somewhere between 1510 and 1522 and went on to train under a religious painter from Brescia, Alessandro Bonvicino.  Although Moroni painted many acclaimed religious works, he became known much more for the vitality and realism of his portraits, for which he was once praised by Titian.  Some of Moroni’s work is in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence and the National Gallery in London but there are fine examples of Moroni’s work in the collection of the Accademia Carrara in Bergamo, such as The Old Man Sitting Down and the Portrait of Bernardo Spini.  One of Moroni’s finest religious works, the Coronation of the Virgin, can be seen in the church of Sant Alessandro della Croce in Via Pignolo in Bergamo’s lower town.  Read more…

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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, 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 grandsons, Christian and Daniel - Paolo’s sons - are also professional players.  As a child, Cesare Maldini was largely brought up by his mother, Maria. 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 this day 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 the extraordinary sight of 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.  The procession follows a route from Piazza del Duomo that takes in several city landmarks and ends, after a long climb along the Via Antonino di Sangiuliano at Via Crociferi.  The procession begins in the afternoon and finishes deep into the night.  There is an enormous fireworks display that takes place when the procession reaches Piazza Cavour.  The final leg, the Race of the Cord, is the part that involves the seemingly endless lines of white-smocked citizens pulling cords attached to the carriage up the long hill of San Giuliano.  As well as being the patron saint of Catania, which may have been her birthplace and where citizens have long believed she has a calming influence on the volcanic activity of Mount Etna, Saint Agatha is the patron saint of breast cancer patients.  Read more…


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