Giovanni Fattori - painter

Landscape artist who painted Risorgimento battle scenes 

A self-portrait of Giovanni
Fattori as a young man

The painter Giovanni Fattori, who campaigned to free Italy from Austrian domination and captured Risorgimento battle scenes on canvas, was born on this day in 1825 in Livorno.

Fattori became a leading member of a group of Tuscan painters known as the Macchiaioli, who have been described as the Italian equivalent of the French Impressionists but whose images were more sharply defined.  The group, largely comprising painters from a working class background, saw themselves more as a social movement who expressed themselves through art.

Born into a modest household in the Via della Coroncina in the centre of Livorno, the Tuscan port city, Fattori’s family hoped he would seek a qualification in commerce that would equip him to prosper in the city’s trade-based economy.

But his skill in sketching persuaded them instead to apprentice him in 1845 to Giuseppe Baldini, a local painter of religious themes.  The following year he moved to Florence to study under Giuseppe Bezzuoli and enrol at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence.

It was while he was in Florence, in 1848, that he became politically active, joining the Partito d’Azione - the Action Party - a liberal-socialist group that campaigned against the Austrian occupation of northern Italy. He distributed leaflets and is said to have taken part in an uprising in his home city of Livorno.  

Fattori made a breakthrough with The Italian
Camp at the Battle of Magenta in 1859 

When he returned to a calmer life in Florence in the early 1850s, Fattori began to frequent the Caffè Michelangiolo, on Via Larga, which was a popular gathering place for Florentine artists to discuss politics and the latest ideas in art. A number of them visited Paris for the Exposition of 1855 and returned keen to pursue the then-unusual practice of painting outdoors, directly from nature. 

Fattori was influenced by meeting the Roman landscape painter Giovanni Costa and decided to join his colleagues in taking up painting landscapes as they really appeared, subject to variations in daylight, as well as scenes of contemporary life.  The Florentine group evolved as the Macchiaioli. 

In terms of his personal finances, Fattori’s important break came in 1859, when his depiction of The Italian Camp at the Battle of Magenta (Il campo italiano dopo la battaglia di Magenta) won him a competition organised by the government to produce a patriotic battle scene. It came with a large enough cash prize for him to be married for the first time, to Settimia Vannucci.

Sadly, they were together for only eight years before Settimia succumbed to tuberculosis. During most of that time, Fattori lived in Livorno and painted mainly scenes of rural life, before moving back to a larger studio in Florence after receiving a number of commissions to paint epic battle scenes from the struggle for Italian unification. Famous among these was the Storming of the Madonna della Scoperta, an episode of the Battle of San Martino (1859).

A detail from Fattori's Maremma Cowboys
driving the Herds (1893)

After his wife’s death, the 1880s saw Fattori painting scenes from rural life in the Maremma, the area in the southwest of Tuscany.  His canvas Maremma Cowboys driving the Herds, one of his most famous works, is on permanent display in the Fattori Gallery in Livorno.

Fattori regarded his battlefield compositions as his finest works, in contradiction to modern critics, who prefer what they regard as his more spontaneous works, such as The Rotunda of Palmieri (1866), Woman with an Umbrella (1866), and his landscapes of the Florentine countryside, then of the Roman countryside, between 1873 and 1880, including his landscapes of the Maremma. 

Fattori fell into poor circumstances after marrying for a second time in 1891. Unable to buy frames for his paintings, he was prevented from exhibiting his works at the exhibition in Dresden in 1896.  After his second wife died in 1903, he was married for the third time, in 1906, but as a painter became increasingly disillusioned.

He died in 1908 in Florence and is buried in the loggia next to the Sanctuary of Montenero in Livorno, along with other important figures from the city’s history.

Livorno's elegant Terrazza Mascagni is
an attraction of the Tuscan port

Travel tip:

Livorno is the second largest city in Tuscany after Florence, with a population of almost 160,000. Although it is a large commercial port with much related industry, it has many attractions, including an elegant sea front – the Terrazza Mascagni - an historic centre, the Venetian quarter with canals, and a tradition of serving excellent seafood.

A view of one of the hillier, greener parts of 
the Maremma region of southern Tuscany

Travel tip:

Maremma is a large coastal area in southern Tuscany known for the variety of its territory, from blue seas and long beaches, black rock, wooded hills and thermal baths to marshes and flat lands.  It has traces of Etruscan and Roman civilisations, as well as the towers and castles of the Middle Ages built by the Aldobrandeschi families and later the Medici.  For centuries, the area was a hotbed for malaria and the reclamation of land from the vast marshy areas begun by the Medici was completed only just after Second World War.

Also on this day:

1610: The birth of Francesco I d’Este, the military leader who built the Ducal Palace in Modena

1620: The birth of Baroque composer Isabella Leonarda

1925: The birth of best-selling author Andrea Camilleri, creator of Inspector Montalbano

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5 September

Mario Scelba – Prime Minister of Italy

Tough interior minister worked for social and economic reform

Mario Scelba, a Christian Democrat who would become Italy’s 33rd Prime Minister, was born on this day in 1901 in Caltagirone in Sicily.  He earned the nickname ‘the Iron Sicilian’ while serving as Interior Minister because of his repression of both left-wing protests and Neo-Fascist rallies.  Scelba had been born into a poor family that worked on land owned by the priest Don Luigi Sturzo, who was to become one of the founders of the Italian People’s Party (PPI).  As his godfather, Sturzo paid for Scelba to study law in Rome. When the Fascists suppressed the PPI and forced Sturzo into exile, Scelba remained in Rome as his agent.  He wrote for the underground newspaper, Il Popolo, during the Second World War. He was once arrested by the Germans but freed after three days as he was considered to be ‘a worthless catch’.  After Rome’s liberation by the Allied Forces, Scelba joined the new Christian Democrats, reborn out of the PPI. The Christian Democrats started organising post-Fascist Italy in competition with the centre and left parties, but also at times in coalition with them.  Read more…

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Tommaso Campanella – poet and philosopher

Friar had utopian dream to banish poverty

Writer Tommaso Campanella was born on this day in 1568 in Stilo in Reggio Calabria and was baptised Giovanni Domenico Campanella.  As a friar who was also a philosopher, Campanella tried to reconcile humanism with Roman Catholicism. He is best remembered for his work, La città del sole (The city of the sun), written in 1602 which was about a utopian commonwealth where every man’s work contributed to the good of the community and there was no poverty.  The son of a poor cobbler, Campanella was an infant prodigy who joined the Dominican order before he was 15, taking the name Fra Tommaso.   He was influenced by the work of philosopher Bernardino Telesio, who opposed Aristotle’s ideas, and he became interested in astrology, which constantly featured in his writing.  After Campanella published his own work, Philosophy Demonstrated by the Senses, which stressed the need for human experience as a basis for philosophy, he was arrested, tried and imprisoned briefly for heresy.  Campanella then became interested in pragmatism and the idea of political reform, moved deeply by the poverty of the people living in his native Stilo.  Read more…

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Francesca Porcellato - Paralympian

Life of sporting excellence born of horrific accident

Francesca Porcellato, one of Italy’s most enduring Paralympians, was born on this day in 1970 in Castelfranco Veneto.  She has competed in seven summer Paralympics as an athlete and cyclist and three winter Paralympics in cross-country skiing, winning a total of 14 medals, including three golds.  At the 2010 Winter Paralympics in Vancouver, Canada, she was flag-bearer for the Italian team.  She is also a prolific wheelchair marathon competitor, sharing with America’s Tatyana McFadden the distinction of having won the London Marathon wheelchair event four times.  Even as she reaches the age of 47, Francesca is still at the top of her sport. Only last weekend in Pietermaritzburg in South Africa, she won gold in the H3 event at the Paracycling road world championships.  The H3 category – for paraplegic, tetraplegic or amputees unable to ride a standard bicycle – involves competitors riding in a lying position, using their arms to turn the wheels.  Francesca was the defending champion in the H3 after winning gold at the 2015 championships in Nottwil in Switzerland, where she also took gold in the time trial.  Read more…

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Giacomo Zabarella – philosopher

Scholar devoted his life to explaining Aristotle’s ideas

The leading representative of Renaissance Aristotelianism, Giacomo Zabarella, was born on this day in 1533 in Padua in the Veneto.  His ability to translate ancient Greek enabled him to understand the original texts written by Aristotle and he spent most of his life presenting what he considered to be the true meaning of the philosopher’s ideas.  He had been born into a noble Paduan family who arranged for him to receive a humanist education.  After entering the University of Padua he was taught by Francesco Robortello in the humanities, Bernardino Tomitano in logic, Marcantonio Genua in physics and metaphysics and Pietro Catena in mathematics. All were followers of Aristotle.  Zabarella obtained a Doctorate in Philosophy from the university in 1553 and was offered the Chair of Logic in 1564. He was promoted to the first extraordinary chair of natural philosophy in 1577.  Zabarella became well known for his writings on logic and methodology and spent his entire teaching career at the University of Padua.  As an orthodox Aristotelian, he sought to defend the scientific status of theoretical natural philosophy.  Read more…

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4 September

Luigi Cadorna – Marshall of Italy

Tough military leader was blamed for losing crucial battle

Luigi Cadorna, a military General who was made a Marshall of Italy, was born on this day in 1850 in Verbania, on the shore of Lake Maggiore in the Piedmont region.  Cadorna is most remembered for his role as Chief of Staff of the Italian Army during the first part of the First World War.  His father was General Raffaele Cadorna, the Piedmontese military leader whose capture of Rome in 1870 completed the unification of Italy.  Sent by his father to a military school in Milan from the age of 10, he entered the Turin Military Academy when he was 15 and, after graduating at the age of 18, was commissioned as a second lieutenant of artillery.  He participated in the occupation of Rome in 1870 as part of the force commanded by his father.  After becoming a Major, Cadorna was appointed to the staff of General Pianelli and became Chief of Staff of the Verona Divisional Command.  From 1892 he was the Colonel commanding the 10th Regiment of Bersaglieri, where he acquired a reputation for strict discipline and harsh punishment.  He was promoted to lieutenant general in 1898 and subsequently held a number of senior command positions.  Read more…

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Giacinto Facchetti - footballer

The original - and best - attacking full back

The footballer Giacinto Facchetti, who captained Italy at two World Cups and won four Serie A titles plus two European Cups for Inter Milan, died on this day in 2006 in Milan.  He had been suffering from pancreatic cancer. When his funeral took place at the Basilica di Sant’Ambrogio in Milan, more than 12,000 fans joined the mourners marking his life. His remains were then taken back to his home town of Treviglio in the province of Bergamo.  Apart from being regarded as the model professional and a pillar of moral decency, Facchetti was seen as a player ahead of his time, the first attacking full back who was a master in both disciplines of his game.  Under the coaching of Internazionale’s great Argentine-born coach, Helenio Herrera, he became integral to the defensive system known as catenaccio, of which Herrera was one of the highest profile advocates.  But Facchetti also knew exactly when to turn defence into attack and to exploit his speed and athleticism going forward. Inter were known as a defensive team but they were also one of the best at punishing opponents with rapid breakaway attacks. In more than 600 appearances for Inter, Facchetti scored 75 goals, the most by any defender in the history of football in Italy.  Read more…

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Saint Rosalia

Little Saint ended the plague in Palermo

The Feast Day of Saint Rosalia is being celebrated today in Sicily, throughout the rest of Italy, in America, Venezuela and in many other countries.  Saint Rosalia, also known as La santuzza, or the Little Saint, is the patron saint of Palermo as well as three towns in Venezuela.  Centuries after Rosalia’s death, the people of Palermo believed she ended the plague when what they thought were her remains were carried in a procession through the city.  Rosalia was born in Palermo in about 1130 into a noble Norman family that claimed to descend from Charlemagne.  She became devoutly religious and eventually went to live as a hermit in a cave on Mount Pellegrino in Sicily.  There is a story that she was led by two angels to live in the cave and that she wrote on the wall that she had chosen to live there out of her love for Jesus. She is believed to have died in 1166 when she would have been about 36.  In 1624 when Palermo was afflicted by the plague, Rosalia appeared first to a sick woman and then to a hunter to tell them where her remains were to be found. She told the hunter to bring her bones to Palermo to be carried in a procession through the city.  Read more…

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3 September

Giuseppe ‘Nino’ Farina – racing driver

The first Formula One world champion

Emilio Giuseppe Farina, driving an Alfa Romeo, became the first Formula One world champion on this day in 1950.  The 43-year-old driver from Turin - usually known as Giuseppe or 'Nino' - clinched the title on home territory by winning the Italian Grand Prix at Monza.  He was only third in the seven-race inaugural championship going into the final event at the Lombardy circuit, trailing Alfa teammates Juan Manuel Fangio, of Argentina, by four points and his Italian compatriot, Luigi Fagioli, by two.  Under the competition’s complicated points scoring system, Fangio was hot favourite, with the title guaranteed if he was first or second, and likely to be his if he merely finished in the first five, provided Farina did not win.  He could have been crowned champion simply by picking up a bonus point for the fastest lap in the race, provided Farina was no higher than third.  Fagioli could take the title only by winning the race with the fastest lap, provided Farina was third or lower and Fangio failed to register a point.  Farina could win the title only by winning the race, recording the fastest lap and hoping Fangio finished no better than third place.   Read more…

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Giuseppe Bottai - Fascist turncoat

Ex-Mussolini minister who fought with Allies

Giuseppe Bottai, who served as a minister in the Fascist government of Benito Mussolini but finished the Second World War fighting with the Allies against Germany, was born on this day in 1895 in Rome.  Bottai helped Mussolini establish the National Fascist Party and served as Minister of National Education under Mussolini between 1936 and 1943. He supported Mussolini’s anti-semitic race laws and founded a magazine that promoted the idea of a superior Aryan race.  However, in 1943, following Italy’s disastrous fortunes in the Second World War, he was among the Fascist Grand Council members who voted for Mussolini to be arrested and removed from office.  Later, after Mussolini was freed from house arrest by German paratroopers and established as head of the Italian Social Republic, Bottai was handed a death sentence and hid in a convent before escaping to join the French Foreign Legion, eventually assisting the Allies in both the invasion of France and the invasion of Germany.  The son of a Roman wine dealer, Bottai studied at the Sapienza University of Rome until Italy declared war against Germany and the Central Powers in 1915.  Read more…

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Pietro Locatelli – musician

Violinist astonished his listeners with his ability

Virtuoso violinist and Baroque composer Pietro Antonio Locatelli was born on this day in 1695 in Bergamo.  He showed an astonishing talent for playing the violin while he was still a young boy and began playing with the orchestra at the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore in Bergamo when he was 14.  In 1711, when he was 16 years old, he left to go to Rome and although it is not known whether he studied with Arcangelo Corelli before the composer’s death in 1713, he will have absorbed a lot of his influence by studying with the other eminent musicians in the city.  In 1714 Locatelli wrote to his father, telling him that he was a member of the band of household musicians working for Prince Michelangelo I Caetani, a notable political figure and scholar. While in Rome he made his debut as a composer, producing his XII Concerto Grossi Op I in 1721.  After 1725 his name crops up in Mantua, Venice, Munich, Berlin and Frankfurt and in every city he received rapturous acclaim for his violin performances. Many of his violin concertos were written at this time.  He was known to be in Kassel in Germany in December 1728.  Read more…

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San Marino - world's oldest sovereign state

Republic founded in 301 as Christian refuge

The Most Serene Republic of San Marino, an independent state within Italy, was founded on this day in 301.  Situated on the north east side of the Apennine mountains, San Marino claims to be the oldest surviving sovereign state and constitutional republic in the world.  Of the world's 196 independent countries, it is the fifth smallest, covering an area of just 61 square kilometres or 24 square miles.  It is also the sole survivor of Italy's once all-powerful city state network, having outlasted such mighty neighbours as Genoa and Venice.  San Marino grew from a monastic community, taking its names from Saint Marinus of Alba in Croatia, a Christian who had been working as a stonemason in Rimini when he was forced to flee Roman persecution and escaped to Mount Titano, where he built a church and founded both the city and state of San Marino.  A constitution was written in the 16th century and its status as an independent state was accepted by the papacy in 1631.  San Marino managed to survive the advance of Napoleon's armies in the late 18th century and then had its wish for continued independence honoured during the Italian unification process.  Read more…

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2 September

NEW - Andrea Illy – businessman and writer

Family dream was to make the best coffee in the world

Andrea Illy, who is the chairman of coffee makers illycaffè, was born on this day in 1964 in Trieste, the capital city of the region of Friuli Venezia Giulia.  The grandson of the founder of illycaffè, Francesco Illy, Andrea represents the third generation of his family to lead the business. His father, Ernesto Illy, was chairman of the company between 1963 and 2004. His sister Anna and brothers Francesco and Riccardo - a former CEO now vice-president - Illy are on the board of directors.  Andrea graduated with a degree in Chemistry from the University of Trieste and went on to study at SDA Bocconi School of Management in Milan, Harvard Business School and Singularity University in Silicon Valley.  He joined the family firm in 1990 as a supervisor of the quality control department. Inspired by Japanese business methods, Andrea started the Total Quality Programme, which established standards both for the company and the coffee industry in general.  He was appointed CEO of illycaffè in 1994 and chairman of the company in 2005.  He developed the Università del Caffè to spread the culture of coffee throughout the world.  Read more…

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Pietro Ferrero - baker and chocolatier

Humble beginnings of €20 billion company

Pietro Ferrero, the founder of the Ferrero chocolate and confectionery company, was born in Farigliano, a small town in Piedmont, on this day in 1898.  A baker by profession, he moved to nearby Alba in 1926 with his wife and young son, Michele, before deciding to try his luck in Turin, where in 1940 he opened a large pastry shop in Via Sant’Anselmo.  Trading conditions were tough, however, and the business was not a success.  The family returned to Alba in 1942, setting up a smaller bakery in Via Rattazzi, at the back of which Pietro created a kind of confectionery laboratory.  He had hit upon the idea of trying to find alternative materials from which to make products, largely because the high taxes on cocoa beans meant conventional chocolate-based pastries were expensive to make.   Hazelnuts, on the other hand, were plentiful, Piedmont being one of Italy’s major producers. One of his experiments involved combining Gianduja, a traditional Piedmontese hazelnut paste, with about 20 per cent chocolate. Convinced his customers would like the taste, he began manufacturing bars of his chocolate-substitute on site at the bakery.  Read more…

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Marie Josephine of Savoy

Italian noblewoman who became titular Queen of France

Marie Josephine Louise of Savoy, who married the future King Louis XVIII of France, was born Maria Giuseppina Luigia on this day in 1753 at the Royal Palace in Turin.  She became a Princess of France and Countess of Provence after her marriage, but died before her husband actually became the King of France.  Marie Josephine was the third child of prince Victor Amadeus of Savoy and Infanta Maria Antonio Ferdinanda of Spain.  Her paternal grandfather, Charles Emmanuel III, was King of Sardinia and so her parents were the Duke and Duchess of Savoy.  Her brothers were to become the last three Kings of Sardinia, the future Charles Emmanuel IV, Victor Emmanuel I and Charles Felix.  At the age of 17, Marie Josephine was married by proxy to Prince Louis Stanislas, Count of Provence, the younger brother of the Dauphin, Louis Auguste, who was fated to become Louis XVI of France and to be executed by guillotine.  After the outbreak of the French Revolution, the Count and Countess of Provence stayed in France with the King and Marie Antoinette.  Read more…

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Giuliano Gemma – actor

Talented Roman became award-winning film star

Actor, stuntman and sculptor Giuliano Gemma was born on this day in 1938 in Rome.  He started working in the film industry as a stuntman but was then offered a real part in the film Arrivano i titani (The Titans Arrive), by director Duccio Tessari.  After this his career took off and he appeared in Luchino Visconti’s Il Gattopardo (The Leopard), as Garibaldi’s General.  Gemma starred in many spaghetti westerns, such as A Pistol for Ringo, Blood for a Silver Dollar, Wanted and Day of Anger. He sometimes appeared in the credits of the films under the name Montgomery Wood.  For his portrayal of Major Matiss in Valerio Zurlini’s The Desert of the Tartars, he won a David di Donatello award.  Gemma had many other film roles, often appeared on Italian television and also worked as a sculptor. His daughter, Vera Gemma, also became an actor.  Giuliano Gemma died in October 2013 following a car accident near Rome. He was taken to a hospital in Civitavecchia but pronounced dead shortly after his arrival. Cinecittà in Rome, the hub of the Italian film industry, is a large studio complex to the south of the city, built during the fascist era.  Read more…

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Andrea Illy – businessman and writer

Family dream was to make the best coffee in the world

Andrea Illy is the grandson of
company founder Francesco Illy

Andrea Illy, who is the chairman of coffee makers illycaffè, was born on this day in 1964 in Trieste, the capital city of the region of Friuli Venezia Giulia.

The grandson of the founder of illycaffè, Francesco Illy, Andrea represents the third generation of his family to lead the business. His father, Ernesto Illy, was chairman of the company between 1963 and 2004. His sister Anna and brothers Francesco and Riccardo - a former CEO now vice-president - Illy are on the board of directors.

Andrea graduated with a degree in Chemistry from the University of Trieste and went on to study at SDA Bocconi School of Management in Milan, Harvard Business School and Singularity University in Silicon Valley.

He joined the family firm in 1990 as a supervisor of the quality control department. Inspired by Japanese business methods, Andrea started the Total Quality Programme, which established standards both for the company and the coffee industry in general.

He was appointed CEO of illycaffè in 1994 and chairman of the company in 2005.

He developed the Università del Caffè to spread the culture of coffee throughout the world. He established the retail side of the business at global level with 230 stores and started a new system of capsules for making coffee.

Francesco Illy's dream was to produce
 the best coffee in the world

His book, Il sogno del caffè (Coffee: The Dream) describes the family and company’s history and the pursuit of the dream of his grandfather, Francesco, to produce the best coffee in the world.

Andrea won the Businessman of the Year Award in Italy in 2004. He is the honorary Chairman of the Association for Science and Information on Coffee and the Chairman of the International Coffee Organisation’s Coffee Market Promotion and Development Committee.

Since 2013 Andrea has been chairman of the Fondazione Altagamma, a foundation for firms that are worldwide ambassadors for Italian living, and from the same year he has been part of the Board of Governors of the Bank of Italy for Trieste.

Married with three daughters, Andrea was named Cavaliere del Lavoro, a Knight of Industry, by the President of Italy in 2018.

Piazza Unità d'Italia is the focal point of the
elegant port city of Trieste

Travel tip:

The beautiful seaport of Trieste, where illycaffè was founded in 1933, officially became part of the Italian Republic in 1954. It lies towards the end of a narrow strip of land situated between the Adriatic Sea and Slovenia and is just 30 kilometres north of Croatia. It has been disputed territory for thousands of years and throughout its history has been influenced by its location at the crossroads of the Latin, Slavic and Germanic cultures. The final border with Yugoslavia was settled in 1975 and this is now the present day border between Italy and Slovenia. Today, Trieste is a lively and cosmopolitan city and a major centre for trade and ship building.

Canal Grande in Trieste has many waterside bars and
restaurants that are popular with visitors 

Travel tip:

Trieste has many coffee houses that date back to the Hapsburg era, when the Austrians were in control of the seaport. Caffè Tommaseo, the oldest in the city, dates back to 1830 and is in Piazza Nicolo Tommaseo. When Irish writer James Joyce was living in Trieste, his favourite bar was Caffè Pirona in Largo della Barriera Vecchia. You could imagine yourself to be in Venice if you linger at a table outside one of the bars or restaurants at the side of Canal Grande, an inlet in the centre of Trieste with moorings for small crafts that is reminiscent of the Grand Canal.

Also on this day:

1753: The birth of Marie Josephine of Savoy, who became the titular Queen of France

1898: The birth of chocolatier Pietro Ferrero

1938: The birth of actor Giuliano Gemma

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1 September

Tullio Serafin – opera conductor

Toscanini’s successor furthered the career of Callas

The man who helped Maria Callas develop her singing talent, musician and conductor Tullio Serafin, was born on this day in 1878 in Rottanova near Cavarzere in the Veneto, on the Adige river just south of the Venetian Lagoon.  Serafin studied music in Milan and went on to play the viola in the orchestra at Teatro alla Scala under the baton of Arturo Toscanini.  He was later appointed assistant conductor and then took over as musical director at the theatre when Toscanini left to go to New York.  Serafin conducted at La Scala between 1909 and 1914, from 1917 to 1918 and then returned briefly at the end of the Second World War.  He became a conductor at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in 1924 and stayed with them for ten years before returning to Italy to become artistic director at the Teatro Reale in Rome.  During his career he helped the development of many singers, including Rosa Ponselle, Magda Olivero and Joan Sutherland.  Serafin’s most notable success was with Maria Callas, with whom he collaborated on many recordings. He is credited with helping the American-born singer achieve a major breakthrough in 1949.  Read more…

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Vittorio Gassman - actor

Stage and screen star once dubbed ‘Italy’s Olivier’

Vittorio Gassman, who is regarded as one of the finest actors in the history of Italian theatre and cinema, was born on this day in 1922 in Genoa.  Tall, dark and handsome in a way that made him a Hollywood producer’s dream, Gassman appeared in almost 150 movies but he was no mere matinée idol.  A highly respected stage actor, he possessed a mellifluous speaking voice, a magisterial presence and such range and versatility in his acting talent that the Hollywood columnist Sheilah Graham once called him ‘the Lawrence Olivier of Italy’.  He enjoyed a career that spanned five decades. Inevitably, he is best remembered for his screen roles, although by the time he made his movie debut in 1945, he had appeared in more than 40 productions of classic plays by Shakespeare, Aeschylus, Ibsen, Tennessee Williams, and others.  On screen, his major successes included his portrayal of the handsome scoundrel Walter opposite Silvana Mangano in Giuseppe De Santis's neorealist melodrama Riso amaro (Bitter Rice, 1948), and several Commedia all’Italiana classics, including Mario Monicelli’s I soliti ignoti (Big Deal On Madonna Street, 1958).  Read more…

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Guido Deiro - vaudeville star

Accordion player who wowed America

The musician Guido Deiro, who was the first artist to become a star playing the piano-accordion, was born on this day in 1886 in an Alpine village north of Turin.  For a while, in the early part of the 20th century, he and his brother Pietro were among the highest-paid performers on the booming American vaudeville circuit. Using his stage name, which was simply ‘Deiro’, he made more than 110 recordings, which sold in large numbers.  He ‘covered’ many popular hits and well known classical and operatic pieces and wrote compositions of his own, the most famous of them the song Kismet, which became the theme song for the Broadway musical and was used in two film versions of the story, which was based on a play by Edward Knoblauch.  Deiro became something of a celebrity and was seldom short of glamorous female company. He was married four times, on the first occasion to his fellow vaudeville star Mae West, who would go on to become much more famous as a movie actress.  He was born Count Guido Pietro Deiro in the village of Salto Canavese, near Courgnè, about 45km (28m) north of Turin. His family were long-standing rural nobility.  Read more…

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