3 March

NEW - The Balvano Disaster

Italy’s worst but little known train tragedy

The Italian railway network suffered its worst accident on this day in 1944 when more than 600 passengers died from carbon monoxide poisoning after a train stopped in a tunnel just outside the small town of Balvano, on the border of Basilicata and Campania about 90km (56 miles) east of Salerno.  Yet, despite the death toll being perhaps nine times that of the country’s worst peacetime rail disaster, few Italians were aware that it had happened until author and historian Gianluca Barneschi wrote a book about it in 2014.  Because the tragedy took place during the final stages of the Second World War, when much of southern Italy was a battleground between German and Allied forces, it resonated as a news story for only a short time, the victims essentially added to Italy’s overall count of civilian casualties during the conflict, which is put at more than 150,000.  However, there was no military involvement in the disaster, which was purely an accident, albeit one that was in part caused by the circumstances of the time.  Barneschi discovered details in classified documents at Britain’s National Archives office in Kew, London.  Read more...

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Charles Ponzi - fraudster

Name forever linked with investment scam

The swindler Charles Ponzi, whose notorious fraudulent investment scheme in 1920s America led his name to be immortalised in the lexicon of financial crimes, was born Carlo Ponzi in the town of Lugo di Romagna on this day in 1882.  Ponzi, who emigrated to the United States in 1903 but arrived there almost penniless, had been in prison twice - once for theft and a second time for smuggling Italian immigrants illegally into the US from Canada - when he came up with his scheme.  Always on the lookout for ways to make a fast buck, Ponzi identified a way to make profits through exploiting the worldwide market in international postal reply coupons.  This was not his scheme, simply the starting point.  These coupons, which allowed a correspondent in one country to pay for the cost of return postage from another country, were sold at a universal cover price but variations in exchange rates meant that a coupon bought in one country might be worth more in another.  Coupons bought in Italy, for example, could be exchanged for stamps in the US that could then be sold for several times more than the dollar-equivalent cost of the coupon in Italy.  Read more…

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Ascanio Sforza – Cardinal

Borgia pope’s ally used his power to benefit Milan

Ascanio Maria Sforza Visconti, who became a skilled diplomat and a Cardinal of the Catholic Church, was born on this day in 1455 in Cremona in Lombardy.  He played a major part in the election of Rodrigo Borgia as Pope Alexander VI in the papal conclave of 1492 and served as Vice-Chancellor of the Holy Roman Church from 1492 until 1505.  Ascanio was the son of Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan, and Bianca Maria Visconti. Two of his brothers, Galeazzo Maria Sforza and Ludovico Sforza, became Dukes of Milan, as did his nephew, Gian Galeazzo Sforza.  At the age of ten, Ascanio was named commendatory abbot of Chiaravalle and he was promised the red hat of a cardinal when he was in his teens. He was appointed Bishop of Pavia in 1479.  Pope Sixtus IV created him cardinal deacon of SS Vito e Modesto in March 1484. Pope Sixtus died in August before Ascanio’s formal ceremony of investiture had taken place and some of the cardinals objected to him participating in the conclave to elect the next pope.  Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia intervened on his behalf and Ascanio was received with all the rights of a cardinal. The conclave elected Giovanni Battista Cybo as Pope Innocent VIII.  Read more...

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Sebastiano Venier – Doge of Venice

Victorious naval commander briefly ruled La Serenissima

Sebastiano Venier, who successfully commanded the Venetian contingent at the Battle of Lepanto, died on this day in 1578 in Venice.  He had been Doge of Venice for less than a year when fire badly damaged the Doge’s Palace. He died soon afterwards, supposedly as a result of the distress it had caused him.  Venier was born in Venice around 1496, the son of Moisè Venier and Elena Donà. He was descended from Pietro Venier, who governed Cerigo, one of the main Ionian islands off the coast of Greece, which was also known as Kythira.  Venier worked as a lawyer, although he had no formal qualifications, and he went on to become an administrator for the Government of the Republic of Venice. He was married to Cecilia Contarini, who bore him two sons and a daughter.  Venier was listed as procurator of St Mark’s in 1570, but by December of the same year, he was capitano generale da mar, the Admiral of the Venetian fleet, in the new war against the Ottoman Turks.  As the commander of the Venetian contingent at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571, he helped the Christian League decisively defeat the Turks.  Read more…

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Nicola Porpora – composer and teacher

Tutor of celebrated opera singers died in poverty

Nicola Porpora, who composed more than 60 operas and was a brilliant singing teacher in Italy, died on this day in 1768 in Naples.  Among his many pupils were poet and librettist Pietro Metastasio, composers Johann Adolph Hasse and Joseph Haydn and the celebrated castrati, Farinelli (Carlo Broschi) and Caffarelli (Gaetano Majorano).  Porpora’s most important teaching post was in Venice at the Ospedale degli Incurabili, where there was a music school for girls, in which he taught between 1726 and 1733.  He then went to London as chief composer to the Opera of the Nobility, a company that had been formed in opposition to Royal composer George Frideric Handel’s opera company.  The composer had been born Nicola Antonio Giacinto Porpora in 1686 in Naples.  He graduated from the music conservatory, Poveri di Gesù Cristo, and his first opera, Agrippina, was a success at the Neapolitan court in 1708. His second opera, Berenice, was performed in Rome.  To support himself financially while composing, Porpora worked as maestro di cappella for aristocratic patrons and also taught singing.  Read more…

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Teatro Olimpico – Vicenza

Renaissance theatre still stages plays and concerts

The Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza , originally designed by Andrea Palladio, was inaugurated on this day in 1585.  A performance of ‘Oedipus the King’ by Sophocles was given for its opening and the original scenery, which was meant to represent the streets of Thebes, has miraculously survived to this day.  The theatre was the last piece of architecture designed by Andrea Palladio and it was not completed until after his death.  The Teatro Olimpico is one of three Renaissance theatres remaining in existence and since 1994 it has been listed by Unesco as a World Heritage Site.  In 1579 Palladio was asked to produce a design for a permanent theatre in Vicenza and he decided to base it on the designs of Roman theatres he had studied.  After his death, only six months into the project, the architect Vincenzo Scamozzi was called in to complete it.  Scamozzi is credited with fulfilling Palladio's wish to use perspective in the design, creating the impression that the streets visible through the archways stretched into the distance.  The theatre is still used for plays and musical performance, but audiences are limited to 400 for conservation reasons.  Read more…

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The Balvano Disaster

Italy’s worst but little known train tragedy

One of several graphic images from the Balvano Disaster
shows the bodies of victims laid out on the station platform

The Italian railway network suffered its worst accident on this day in 1944 when more than 600 passengers died from carbon monoxide poisoning after a train stopped in a tunnel just outside the small town of Balvano, on the border of Basilicata and Campania about 90km (56 miles) east of Salerno.

Yet, despite the death toll being perhaps nine times that of the country’s worst peacetime rail disaster, few Italians were aware that it had happened until author and historian Gianluca Barneschi wrote a book about it in 2014.

Because the tragedy took place during the final stages of the Second World War, when much of southern Italy was a battleground between German and Allied forces, it resonated as a news story for only a short time, the victims essentially added to Italy’s overall count of civilian casualties during the conflict, which is put at more than 150,000.

However, there was no military involvement in the disaster, which was purely an accident, albeit one that was in part caused by the circumstances of the time.

Bodies were loaded on to trucks and taken
away to be buried in mass graves

Barneschi discovered details in classified documents at Britain’s National Archives office in Kew, London, and the story was picked up by an Italian television documentary maker.  Witnesses and survivors helped put together an account of what happened.

Although the train, which originated in Naples, consisted only of goods wagons, it was packed with civilians travelling to the countryside in search of food, with many in the heavily bombed urban areas around Naples almost at the point of starving because of shortages.

Official reports classed these passengers as stowaways, although some accounts suggest that it was so common at the time for civilians to board freight trains in large numbers that there was a black market in unofficial tickets, and that most would have paid a fare.

The train left Naples on the afternoon of 2 March. It travelled at a low speed and made frequent stops as the line followed the coastline of the Bay of Naples, a heavily populated area, passing through Ercolano, Torre del Greco and Torre Annunziata before going inland through Pompei, Nocera Inferiore and the historic town of Cava de’ Terreni, rejoining the coast near Salerno, en route to the city of Potenza in Basilicata.

Until Salerno, the train had been pulled by an electric locomotive, but at that point the electrified line ran out. This meant that the remaining 100km or so of the journey, through increasingly mountainous terrain and frequent tunnels, would have to be completed under steam power.  

Upon leaving Balvano-Ricigliano, trains go straight into a
tunnel, although the disaster occurred in another tunnel

Running coal-fired steam trains through poorly ventilated tunnels was inherently risky at the best of times and the weight of the train required two steam locomotives, producing double the volume of smoke. All was well until the train left the station at the Balvano-Ricigliano station, situated in a steep-sided gorge below Balvano, at about 12.50am on 3 March.  

Entering the Delle Armi tunnel, which is almost 2km long and has a gradient of 1.3%, the train’s wheels began to slip on rails wet from humidity and stalled.  By the time it halted, about 800km into the tunnel, all but the last two wagons were in the tunnel.

Attempting to restart the train inside the tunnel would have been hazardous in any circumstances because of the amount of smoke generated but the problems for the crew were compounded by the fact that, because of shortages, they were reliant on a low-grade coal substitute that produced less power, but more carbon monoxide.

Bodies of the victims were laid to rest in the
local cemetery of Balvano

In addition, there was no communication between the crews of the two locomotives, which meant that as the front locomotive tried to reverse, the second was still attempting to move forward. At the rear, meanwhile, the brakeman in the final wagon, fearing that the train was sliding backwards out of control, applied the brake. The result was that, as the air in the tunnel became more and more toxic and the train failed to move, the crew members lost consciousness. Most of the passengers were asleep and simply never woke up; others who had tried to escape passed out at trackside in the tunnel.

The brakeman was one of only two crew to survive. He eventually walked back the 1.8km to the station, where the alarm was finally raised at 5.10am. By the time rescuers arrived, it was too late for many of the victims to be saved.

Although the tragedy was reported in Italian newspapers it was soon overtaken by other news.  Barneschi believes that the Allies were keen that the event did not receive much attention anyway, fearful that stories of a liberated but starving local population would not reflect well on them.  The Italians, meanwhile, embarrassed that their freight trains were carrying huge numbers of illegal passengers, may have similarly been happy for the incident to be forgotten.

There was an inquiry but no authority or individual was held responsible and no prosecutions resulted.  Of the victims, only the railway employees were given proper funerals. The passengers were buried in four mass graves at the cemetery in Balvano, with no religious ceremony.

The exact death toll has never been established.  The official tally, recorded in the minutes of the inquiry, was put at 517; Barneschi’s research, however, found that when the recovered bodies were laid out on the station platform at Bavano-Ricigliano, they numbered 626.

Salerno in Campania has a pleasant waterfront yet
is often overlooked by visitors to the area

Travel tip:

Salerno, situated some 55km (34 miles) south of Naples with a population of about 133,000, is a city with a reputation as an industrial port and is often overlooked by visitors to Campania, who tend to flock to Naples, Sorrento, the Amalfi coast and the Cilento. Yet it has an attractive waterfront and a quaint old town, at the heart of which is the Duomo, originally built in the 11th century, which houses in its crypt is the tomb of one of the twelve apostles of Christ, Saint Matthew the Evangelist. It is also a good base for excursions both to the Amalfi coast, just a few kilometres to the north, and the Cilento, which can be found at the southern end of the Gulf of Salerno. Hotels are also cheaper than at the more fashionable resorts.

Some of the ancient cave-dwellings for which the
city of Matera has become famous 

Travel tip:

Although Basilicata, of which the city of Potenza is the regional capital, is not among Italy’s major tourist attractions, it has some dramatic scenery and a couple of gems in Matera and Maratea. Declared a European Capital of Culture in 2019, the city of Matera is famous for an area called the Sassi di Matera, made up of former cave-dwellings carved into an ancient river canyon. The area became associated with extreme poverty in the last century and was evacuated in 1952, lying abandoned until the 1980s, when a gradual process of regeneration began. Now, the area contains restaurants, hotels and museums and is an increasingly popular destination for visitors.  Basilicata has two coastlines, one on the Ionian Sea, in the ‘arch’, so to speak, between the heel and toe of the Italian peninsula, the other on the Tyrrhenian Sea, south of the Cilento area of Campania, which is where visitors will find Maratea, a town built on a wooded hillside presiding over around 32km (20 miles) of rocky coastline and more than 20 beaches. 

Also on this day:

1455: The birth of Borgia ally Cardinal Ascanio Sforza

1585: The inauguration of Palladio’s Teatro Olimpico

1768: The birth of composer Nicola Porpora

1882: The birth of fraudster Charles Ponzi

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2 March

Vittorio Pozzo - double World Cup winner

Manager led Azzurri to victory in 1934 and 1938

Vittorio Pozzo, the most successful manager in the history of Italy's national football team, was born on this day in 1886 in Turin.  Under Pozzo's guidance, the Azzurri won the FIFA World Cups of 1934 and 1938 as well as the Olympic football tournament in 1936. He also led them to the Central European International Cup, the forerunner of the European championships, in 1931 and 1935. No other coach in football history has won the World Cup twice.  Pozzo managed some outstanding players, such as Internazionale's Giuseppe Meazza and the Juventus defender Pietro Rava, but his reputation was tarnished by the success of his team coinciding with the Fascist regime's tight grip on power. Italy's success on the football field was exploited ruthlessly as a propaganda vehicle.  While not a Fascist himself, Pozzo upset many opponents of Mussolini across Europe at the 1938 World Cup in France when his players gave the so-called 'Roman' salute - the extended right-arm salute adopted by the Fascists - during the playing of the Italian anthem.  Read more…

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Pietro Novelli – painter and architect

Sicilian great who was killed in Palermo riot

Pietro Novelli, recognised as the most important artist in 17th century Sicily, was born on this day in 1603 in Monreale, a town about 10km (6 miles) from Palermo.  A prolific painter, his works can be seen in many churches and galleries in Sicily, in particular in Palermo.  There are good examples of his work outside the city, too, for example at Piana degli Albanesi, about 30km (19 miles) from Palermo, where he painted a fresco cycle in the cathedral of San Demetrio Megalomartire and another fresco, entitled Annunciation, in the church of Santissima Annunziata.  At his peak, wealthy and aristocratic members of Sicilian society, as well as monasteries and churches, competed to be in possession of a Novelli work.  His father, also called Pietro, was a respected artist who also worked with mosaics and Pietro initially worked in his father’s workshop in Monreale.  A great student of art who travelled extensively, among his major influences were Caravaggio, whose work in Sicily he studied, particularly his Adoration of the Shepherds, which was commissioned for the Capuchin Franciscans and was painted in Messina for the Church of Santa Maria degli Angeli.  Read more…

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Pope Pius XII

Pope elected on 63rd birthday to lead the church during the war

Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli was elected Pope and took the name of Pius XII on this day in 1939, his 63rd birthday.  A pre-war critic of the Nazis, Pius XII expressed dismay at the invasion of Poland by Germany later that year.  But the Vatican remained officially neutral during the Second World War and Pius XII was later criticised by some people for his perceived silence over the fate of the Jews.  Pope Pius XII was born Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli on March 2, 1876 in Rome.  His family had a history of links with the papacy and he was educated at a school that had formerly been the Collegio Romano, a Jesuit College in Rome.  He went on to study theology and became ordained as a priest.  He was appointed nuncio to Bavaria in 1917 and tried to convey the papal initiative to end the First World War to the German authorities without success. After the war he worked to try to alleviate distress in Germany and to build diplomatic relations between the Vatican and the Soviet Union.  He was made a Cardinal priest in 1929 and elected Pope on March 2, 1939.   When war broke out again he had to follow the strict Vatican policy of neutrality.  Read more…

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1 March

Luigi Vanvitelli – architect

Neapolitan genius drew up a grand design for his royal client

The most famous Italian architect of the 18th century, Luigi Vanvitelli, died on this day in 1773 in Caserta in Campania.  The huge Royal Palace he designed for the Bourbon kings of Naples in Caserta is considered one of the greatest triumphs of the Baroque style of architecture in Italy.  Vanvitelli was born Lodewijk van Wittel in Naples in 1700, the son of a Dutch painter of landscapes, Caspar van Wittel. His father later also took up the Italian surname Vanvitelli.  Luigi Vanvitelli was trained as an architect by Nicola Salvi and worked with him on lengthening the façade of Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s Palazzo Chigi-Odelscalchi in Rome and on the construction of the Trevi Fountain.  Following his notable successes with the facade of the Basilica di San Giovanni in Laterano (1732) and the facade of Palazzo Poli, behind the Trevi Fountain, Pope Clement XII sent Vanvitelli to the Marche to build some papal projects.   At Ancona in 1732, he directed construction of the Lazzaretto, a large pentagonal building built as an isolation unit to protect against contagious diseases arriving on ships. Later it was used as a military hospital or as barracks.  Read more…

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Gastone Nencini – cycling champion

Lion of Mugello won both Tour de France and Giro d’Italia

Gastone Nencini, sometimes described as Italy’s forgotten cycling champion, and certainly one of its least heralded, was born on this day in 1930 in Barberino di Mugello, a town in the Tuscan Apennines, about 38km (24 miles) north of Florence.  Nencini won the 1957 Giro d’Italia and the 1960 Tour de France, putting him in the company of only seven Italians to have won the greatest of cycling’s endurance tests.   He followed Ottavio Bottecchia, Gino Bartali and Fausto Coppi and preceded Felice Gimondi, Marco Pantani and the most recent winner, 2014 champion Vincenzo Nibali.  Yet often even cycling fans asked to name the seven Italian champions sometimes forget Nencini, despite his courage and resilience earning him the nickname The Lion of Mugello.  This may be in part because he died very young, a month short of his 50th birthday, after developing a rare disease of the lymphatic system.  Others, in particular members of his family, believe it was his maverick nature, his refusal to comply with the sport’s etiquette, that damaged his reputation.  In his era, some claim, there were unwritten rules in cycling.  Read more…

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Pietro Canonica - sculptor

Artist in demand from European royalty

The sculptor Pietro Canonica, who was also a proficient painter and an accomplished musician but who found himself most in demand to create busts, statues and portraits for the royal courts of Europe, was born on this day in 1869 in Moncalieri in Piedmont.  Canonica’s ability to create realism in his work, bringing marble sculptures almost to life, resulted in an endless stream of commissions, taking him from Buckingham Palace in London to the courts of Paris, Vienna, Brussels and St Petersburg.  He was highly skilled in equestrian statuary and after the First World War was commissioned to create many monuments to the fallen, which can be seen in squares around Italy to this day.  Canonica’s mastery of Naturalism and Realism were the qualities that set him apart, exemplified nowhere with such stunning effect as in his 1909 work L'abisso - The Abyss - which depicts Paolo and Francesca, the ill-fated lovers from Dante’s Inferno, locked in their eternal punishment, clinging desperately to one another with fear in their eyes, her fingers digging into his back as the vortex in which they are trapped drags them towards their fate.  Read more…

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Cesare Danova - movie actor

Acclaim came late for Bergamo-born star

The actor Cesare Danova, who appeared in more than 300 films and TV shows over the course of a 45-year career, was born Cesare Deitinger on this day in 1926 in the Lombardy city of Bergamo.  The son of an Austrian father and an Italian mother, he adopted Danova as his professional name after meeting the film producer, Dino De Laurentiis, in Rome.  De Laurentiis gave him a screen test and was so impressed he immediately cast Danova in the 1947 movie The Captain's Daughter, playing alongside Amedeo Nazzari and Vittorio Gassman.  So began a career that was to see Danova star opposite Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in Joseph L Mankiewicz's 1963 hit Cleopatra, opposite Elvis Presley and Ann-Margaret in Viva Las Vegas (1964), alongside Robert De Niro and Harvey Keitel in Martin Scorsese's cult movie Mean Streets (1973) and as part of a star-studded cast in National Lampoon's Animal House (1978).  In his later years, Danova became a familiar figure on TV screens in America, making appearances in almost all the popular drama series of the 1980s, including Charlie's Angels, Murder, She Wrote, Falcon Crest and Hart to Hart.  Read more…

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