6 January

NEW - Silvana Pampanini - actress and singer

Postwar pin-up who preceded Loren and Lollobrigida

The actress and singer Silvana Pampanini, who starred in more than 50 films and was Italian cinema’s biggest box office draw in the 1950s, died on this day in 2016 in Rome.  She was 90 years old and had been hospitalized for some weeks following abdominal surgery. Her funeral took place at the Basilica di Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, in the Esquilino district to the southeast of the city centre.  Born in Rome into a family of Venetian heritage in 1925, she had ambitions to become an opera singer, inspired by the career of her aunt, Rosetta Pampanini, a noted soprano who sang at many of the world’s great opera houses.  She enrolled at the renowned Conservatorio Santa Cecilia in Rome, where her male teacher was so struck by her physical beauty that without her knowledge he entered her for the 1946 Miss Italy contest, the first to be staged after the end of World War Two.  Though taken aback at first, Pampanini was a confident young woman and went along with it. Indeed, the audience were so appreciative of her curvy figure, green eyes and long legs that when the jury awarded the title to Rossana Martini, another future actress, there was a near riot and police had to be called to restore order. Read more…

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Baldassare Verazzi - painter

Piedmontese artist famous for image of uprising in Milan

The painter Baldassare Verazzi, whose most famous work depicts a scene from the anti-Austrian uprising known as The Five Days of Milan, was born on this day in 1819 in Caprezzo, a tiny village in Piedmont, 120km (75 miles) from Turin in the hills above Lake Maggiore.  Something of a revolutionary in that he was an active supporter of the Risorgimento, it is supposed that he was in Milan in 1848 when citizens rose up against the ruling forces of the Austrian Empire, which controlled much of northern Italy.  The Cinque Giornate di Milano, in March of that year, comprised five days of street fighting that eventually resulted in the Austrian garrison being expelled from the city, marking the start of the First Italian War of Independence.  Verazzi’s painting, which is today on display at the Museum of the Risorgimento in the Castello Sforza in Milan, is entitled Episodio delle Cinque Giornate (Combattimento a Palazzo Litta), and shows three figures sheltering behind a barricade while another aims a rifle over the barricade, presumably in the direction of Austrian troops.  Born into a family of humble origins, Verazzi studied at the Brera Academy in Milan.  Read more…

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Adriano Celentano – singer and actor

Italy’s biggest-selling recording artist of all time

The pop singer and movie actor Adriano Celentano, who is estimated to have sold in the region of 200 million records in a career spanning 60 years, was born on this day in 1938 in Milan.  One of the most important and influential figures in Italian pop culture, Celentano enjoys such enduring popularity that when he gave his first live performance for 18 years at the Arena di Verona in 2012, screened on the Canale 5 television channel, it attracted an audience of more than nine million viewers.  He has recorded more than 40 albums, among which, Tutti le migliori (All The Best) reviving his collaboration with another veteran Italian star, Mina, was released in 2017 and included new material.  Celentano’s biggest individual hits include Stai lontana di me (Stay away from me, 1962), Si è spento il sole (The sun has gone out, 1962), Pregherò (I will pray, 1962), Il ragazzo della via Gluck (The boy from Gluck Street, 1966), La coppia più bello del mondo (The most beautiful couple in the world, 1967), Azzurro (Blue, 1968), Sotto le lenzuola (Under the sheets, 1971), Ti avrò (I will have you, 1978) and Susanna (1984).  Read more…

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Giuseppe Sammartini – oboe player and composer

Musician could make oboe sound like the human voice

Giuseppe Sammartini, a brilliant oboist and composer during the late baroque and early classical era, was born on this day in 1695 in Milan.  The musician - named Giuseppe Francesco Gaspare Melchiorre Baldassare Sammartini in full - spent many years living and working in London, where he was hailed as ‘the greatest oboist the world had ever known.’ He also worked as a music master for Frederick, Prince of Wales and his wife Augusta, when Frederick was heir to the British throne. Frederick was the eldest son of King George II, but he died before his father. Frederick’s own eldest son later became King George III.  Giuseppe’s younger brother, Giovanni Battista Sammartini, also became a well-known composer and oboe player. The brothers had both been given oboe lessons by their French father, Alexis Saint-Martin.  Giuseppe Sammartini, who could also play the flute and recorder, was the oboe player at a church in Milan in about 1717.  He then became oboist at the Teatro Regio Ducale, an opera house in Milan, in 1720.  Sammartini went to live and work in Brussels in 1729 but then moved to London, where he was a great success.  Read more…

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First Montessori school opens in Rome

Educationalist Maria Montessori launches Casa dei Bambini

The first of what would become recognised across the world as Montessori schools opened its doors in Rome on this day in 1907.  The Casa dei Bambini, in the working class neighbourhood of San Lorenzo, was launched by the physician and educationalist Maria Montessori.  Montessori - the first woman in Italy to qualify as a physician - had enjoyed success with her teaching methods while working with children as a volunteer at Rome University's psychiatric clinic.  She was convinced that the techniques she had used to help children with learning difficulties and more serious mental health issues could be adapted for the benefit of all children.  The Casa dei Bambini came into being after Montessori had been invited to work on a housing project in San Lorenzo, where her responsibility was to oversee the care and education of the project's children while their parents were at work.  Situated in Via dei Marsi, it catered for between 50 and 60 children aged between two and seven.  The methods Montessori employed, which included many practical activities as well as more conventional lessons.  Read more…

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Befana - Italy’s 6 January tradition

A good witch who traditionally sweeps away problems

Children in Italy will be waking up on this day hoping to find that Befana has left them some presents while they have been sleeping.  Although Christmas is almost over, the eve of 6 January is when a kind witch is supposed to visit the good children in Italy and leave them presents.  Traditionally, children who have been naughty are supposed to receive only a lump of coal and those who have been stupid are supposed to receive only a carrot.  But in reality, many children throughout Italy will expect good presents from Befana today.  Befana is also sometimes referred to as La Vecchia (the old woman) and La Strega (the witch). But she is supposed to be a similar character to Saint Nicholas or Santa Claus.  It is believed her name derives from La Festa dell’Epifania (the feast of the Epiphany).  Befana is usually portrayed in illustrations as an old lady riding a broomstick, wearing a black shawl and covered in soot because she enters the children’s homes through the chimney.  Another tradition is that Befana sweeps the floor of the house before she leaves, symbolising the sweeping away of the problems of the previous year.  Read more…

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Silvana Pampanini - actress and singer

Postwar pin-up who preceded Loren and Lollobrigida

Silvana Pampanini combined acting talent with
star quality to become Italy's best paid actress

The actress and singer Silvana Pampanini, who starred in more than 50 films and was Italian cinema’s biggest box office draw in the 1950s, died on this day in 2016 in Rome.

She was 90 years old and had been hospitalized for some weeks following abdominal surgery. Her funeral took place at the Basilica di Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, in the Esquilino district to the southeast of the city centre.

Born in Rome into a family of Venetian heritage in 1925, she had ambitions to become an opera singer, inspired by the career of her aunt, Rosetta Pampanini, a noted soprano who sang at many of the world’s great opera houses.

She enrolled at the renowned Conservatorio Santa Cecilia in Rome, where her male teacher was so struck by her physical beauty that without her knowledge he entered her for the 1946 Miss Italy contest, the first to be staged after the end of World War Two.

Though taken aback at first, Pampanini was a confident young woman and went along with it. Indeed, the audience were so appreciative of her curvy figure, green eyes and long legs that when the jury awarded the title to Rossana Martini, another future actress, there was a near riot and police had to be called to restore order. Later, the result was amended and the contest declared a draw.

Pampanini was unashamedly promoted as a sex
symbol during the 1950s Italian cinema boom

Beauty contests were fertile ground for movie makers in search of the next starlet and although Pampanini wanted to be appreciated for her singing voice as well as her visual appeal it was the latter quality that producers were so keen to exploit.

After her screen debut in 1946, her fame grew steadily and her photo frequently appeared on the front covers of Italy’s booming weekly magazines. Her father, who initially disapproved of her dream of becoming a movie star, soon changed his mind and became her agent. By 1951, when she starred alongside Delia Scala in Carlo Campogalliani’s musical comedy Bellezze in bicicletta - Beauties on Bicycles - and as the Empress Poppea in Mario Soldati’s comedy, OK Nerone, she was the highest paid actress in Italy and was making up to eight films per year.

Those titles unashamedly showcased her pin-up status but Pampanini was not without talent as an actress. Titles such as Luigi Comencini’s drama La Tratta delle bianche - The White Slave Trade - Paolo Moffa’s La principessa delle Canarie - The Princess of the Canaries - Gianni Franciolini’s Racconti Romani - Roman Tales - and Dino Risi’s Il Gaucho - The Gaucho - saw her perform opposite major actors such as Vittorio Gassman, Marcello Mastroianni, Totò and Vittorio De Sica.

La strada lungo un anno won
a Golden Globe in 1958

In 1958 she took a part in Giuseppe De Santis's La strada lungo un anno - The Road a Year Long - which won the Golden Globe award for best foreign film and was nominated for an Oscar in the same category.

She became popular as far afield as Egypt, Mexico and Japan as well as in Spain and France, where she was known as Niní Pampan. She became a worldwide symbol of Italian beauty alongside such stars as Lucia Bosè and Silvana Mangano, and later Sophia Loren and Gina Lollobrigida.

There were countless offers to take her appeal to Hollywood, but Pampanini baulked at the idea of spending hours learning English and turned them all down. 

Nonetheless, she travelled extensively, happy to be a smiling ambassador for Italian cinema In Europe, South America, North Africa and even the Soviet Union, often appearing on local TV shows or accepting invitations to be a guest panel member at film festivals. 

Although she was frequently linked romantically with co-stars such as Orson Welles, Omar Sharif, William Holden and Tyrone Power, she never married, despite having, in her own words, ‘more suitors than headaches’ in her life.

She rejected an offer of marriage from comic actor Totò because of his age - he was 27 years’ her senior. There were rumours of affairs with the Cuban leader, Fidel Castro, and Egypt’s King Farouk, who were both said to be smitten after meeting her.

Pampanini with the comic actor Totò, one of
a number of suitors she ultimately rejected

Pampanini was pursued with particular ardour by the Greek-born producer Moris Egas, who showered her with jewels and furs and other valuable items. When she ultimately rejected him, he took legal action to try to recover his gifts but lost the case.

Later, in an autobiography entitled Scandalamente perbene - Scandalously Respectable - she claimed that the love of her life had been an older man - another actor - who had died a month before they were to wed, but she declined to name him. 

Pampanini had a fiery temperament. After the Miss Italy contest that shot her to fame, she gave a radio interview alongside her joint-winner that had to be curtailed when the two began to quarrel and pull each other’s hair. Years later, at the Venice Lido Film Festival, she physically attacked a journalist who had been unkind to her in a magazine article.

Her career effectively came to an end in her mid-60s, when she gave up full-time work to look after her elderly parents. After they died, she moved for a while to Monte Carlo and lived in relative obscurity.  She made some TV appearances, the last of which was in 2002.

Rome's Parioli district is an upmarket residential
area notable for its tree-lined streets

Travel tip:

The Parioli district, where Pampanini lived at the height of her fame, is one of Rome's wealthiest residential neighbourhoods. Located north of the city centre, it is notable for its tree-lined streets and elegant houses, and for some of Rome's finest restaurants. The Auditorium Parco della Musica and the Villa Ada, once the Rome residence of the Italian royal family and surrounded by the second largest park in the city, can also be found within the Parioli district, which takes its name from the Monti Parioli hills.

The entrance to the historic
Conservatorio in Via dei Greci

Travel tip:

The Conservatorio di Santa Cecilia, where Silvana Pampanini trained as a singer, dates back to 1875. It was set up under the auspices of one of the oldest musical institutions in the world, now known as the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, which was established in 1565. The Conservatorio can be found in Via dei Greci, not far from the Spanish Steps in central Rome. The Academy is located at the Parco della Musica in the northern part of Rome in Viale Pietro de Coubertin in the Flaminio district, close to the location of the 1960 Summer Olympic Games.

Also on this day:

Befana - Italy’s 6 January tradition

1695: The birth of oboist and composer Giuseppe Sammartini

1819: The birth of painter Baldassare Verazzi

1907: The first Montessori school opens in Rome

1938: The birth of singer and actor Adriano Celentano

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5 January

Dr Michele Navarra – physician and Mafia boss

Hospital doctor who headed Corleone clan

Michele Navarra, an extraordinary figure who became the leading physician in his home town of Corleone while simultaneously heading up one of the most notorious clans in the history of the Sicilian Mafia, was born on this day in 1905.  Dr Navarra was a graduate of the University of Palermo, where he studied engineering before turning to medicine, and became a captain in the Royal Italian Army. He could have had a comfortable and worthy career as a doctor.  Yet he developed a fascination with stories about his uncle, Angelo Gagliano, who until he was murdered when Navarra was a boy of about 10 years old had been a member of the Fratuzzi – the Brothers – a criminal organisation who leased agricultural land from absentee landlords and then sublet it to peasant farmers at exorbitant rates, enforcing their authority by extorting protection money, as well as by controlling the hiring of workers.  As the son of a land surveyor, Navarra already enjoyed privileges inaccessible to most of the population and his medical qualifications only further lifted his standing in the community. Somehow, though, it was not enough.  Read more…

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Umberto Eco – novelist and semiotician

Prolific author became fascinated with signs and symbols

Academic and writer Umberto Eco was born on this day in 1932 in Alessandria in Piedmont.  Eco, who died in 2016, was best known for his mystery novel, The Name of the Rose - Il Nome della Rosa, which was first published in Italian in 1980, but he was also a respected expert on semiotics, the branch of linguistics concerned with signs and symbols.  Eco studied medieval literature and philosophy at the University of Turin and after graduating worked in television as well returning to lecture at the University of Turin. He was a visiting professor at a number of American universities and received honorary doctorates from universities in America and Serbia.  As well as producing fiction, he published books on medieval aesthetics, literary criticism, media culture, anthropology and philosophy. He also helped to found an important new approach in contemporary semiotics and to launch a journal on semiotics.  Eco set his first novel, The Name of the Rose, in a 14th century monastery with a Franciscan friar as the detective. The book has been described as ‘an intellectual mystery combining semiotics in fiction, biblical analysis, medieval studies and literary theory’.  Read more…

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Severino Gazzelloni - flautist

Lead player with RAI orchestra considered a great of Italian music

The flautist Severino Gazzelloni, who for 30 years was the principal player of his instrument in the prestigious RAI National Symphony Orchestra but who had a repertoire that extended well beyond orchestral classical music, was born on this day in 1919 in Roccasecca, a town perched on a hillside in southern Lazio, about 130km (81 miles) south of Rome.  He was known for his versatility. In addition to his proficiency in classical flute pieces, Gazzelloni also excelled in jazz and 20th century avant-garde music. As such, many musicians and aficionados regard him as one of the finest flute players of all time.  Gazzelloni also taught others to master the flute. His notable pupils included the American jazz saxophonist Eric Dolphy and the Dutch classical flautist Abbie de Quant.  The son of a tailor in Roccasecca, Gazzelloni grew up in modest circumstances yet had music around him from a young age as his father played in a local band.  He taught himself music and became fascinated with the flute as an instrument, acquiring the technique to play it simply by practising for endless hours on his own.  By the age of seven, his father considered him good enough to sit alongside him in the band.  Read more…

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Giuseppe Impastato - anti-Mafia activist

Son of mafioso was murdered for speaking out

Giuseppe Impastato, a political activist who was murdered by the Sicilian Mafia in 1978, was born on this day in 1948 in Cinisi, a coastal resort 36km (22 miles) west of Palermo which is now home to the city's Punta Raisi airport.  Also known as Peppino, Impastato was born into a Mafia family.  His father, Luigi, had been considered a significant enough figure in the criminal organisation to be sent into internal exile during the Fascist crackdown of the 1920s and was a close friend of the local Mafia boss, Gaetano Badalamenti.  Impastato had already begun to take an interest in left-wing political ideology when his uncle, Cesare Manzella, was blown up by a car bomb in 1963, the victim of a contract killing.  The murder had a profound effect on Impastato, then only 15, who denounced all his father stood for and left home.  He began to write, founding a left-wing newsletter, L'Idea Socialista, in 1965, and soon joined the Italian Socialist Party of Proletarian Unity (PSIUP).  He became the regular instigator of student and workers' protests during the late 1960s and led a number of anti-Mafia demonstrations.  Read more…

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4 January

Carlo Levi – writer and painter

Author and doctor who highlighted poverty in southern Italy

The anti-Fascist writer, painter and doctor, Carlo Levi, died on this day in Rome in 1975.  He is best remembered for his book Christ Stopped at Eboli - Cristo si è fermato a Eboli - an account of the time he spent in political exile in a remote, impoverished part of Italy.  Levi was born in Turin in 1902. His father was a wealthy Jewish physician and Levi went to the University of Turin to study medicine after finishing school.  While at University he became active in politics and after graduating he turned his attention to painting.  But he never completely abandoned medicine and moved to Paris to continue his medical research while painting.  After returning to Italy, Levi founded an anti-Fascist movement in 1929. As a result he was arrested and sent into exile to a remote area of Italy called Lucania (now renamed Basilicata).  He encountered extreme poverty, which had been unknown in the north where he grew up. As well as writing and painting while he was in exile, he served as a doctor to help the poor villagers he lived among.  When he was released from his political exile he moved back to France but on his return to Italy he was arrested again.  Read more…

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Pino Daniele - singer and songwriter

Naples mourned star with flags at half-mast

The Neapolitan singer-songwriter Pino Daniele died on this day in 2015 in hospital in Rome.  Daniele, whose gift was to fuse his city’s traditional music with blues and jazz, suffered a heart attack after being admitted with breathing difficulties. Daniele, who had a history of heart problems, had been taken to Rome after falling ill at his holiday home in Tuscany.  On learning of his death, the Naples mayor Luigi de Magistris ordered that flags on municipal buildings in the city be flown at half-mast.  Born in 1955, Daniele grew up in a working class family in the Sanità neighborhood of Naples, once a notorious hotbed of crime. His father worked at the docks.  As a musician, he was self-taught, mastering the guitar with no formal lessons and developing a unique voice, alternately soaring and soft, and gravelly to the point of sounding almost hoarse.  He named the great American jazz musicians Louis Armstrong and George Benson as his major influences but also drew deeply on the life, culture and traditions of his home city, which he loved.  His songs sometimes combined Italian, English and Naples dialect.  Read more…

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Gaetano Merola – conductor and impresario

Neapolitan who founded the San Francisco Opera

Gaetano Merola, a musician from Naples who emigrated to the United States and ultimately founded the San Francisco Opera, was born on this day in 1881.  Merola directed the company and conducted many performances for 30 years from its opening night in September 1923 until his death in August 1953.  He literally died doing what he loved, collapsing in the orchestra pit while conducting the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra during a concert at an outdoor amphitheatre in the city.  The son of a violinist at the Royal Court in Naples, Merola studied piano and conducting at the Conservatorio di San Pietro a Majella in Naples, graduating with honours at the age of 16.  Three years later he was invited to New York to work as assistant to Luigi Mancinelli, another Italian emigrant, born in Orvieto, who was a noted composer and cellist who was lead conductor of the New York Metropolitan Opera.  Demand for his services grew and he made regular guest appearances with companies across America and beyond, including a stint at Oscar Hammerstein’s London Opera House on the site of what is now the Peacock Theatre in Holborn.   Read more…

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Giuseppe ‘Pino’ Greco - Mafia executioner

Notorious hitman thought to have committed at least 80 murders

The notorious Mafia hitman Giuseppe Greco, who was convicted posthumously on 58 counts of murder but whose victims possibly ran into hundreds, was born on this day in 1952 in Ciaculli, a town on the outskirts of Palermo in Sicily.  More often known as ‘Pino’, or by his nickname Scarpuzzedda - meaning ‘little shoe’ - Greco is considered one of the most prolific killers in the history of organised crime.  The nephew of Michele Greco, who lived on an estate just outside Ciaculli and rose to be head of the Sicilian Mafia Commission - a body set up to settle disputes between rival clans - Pino Greco is generally accepted to have been responsible for 80 deaths, although some students of Cosa Nostra history believe he could have committed more than 300 killings.  Most of Greco’s victims were fellow criminals, the majority of them killed during the Second Mafia War, which began in 1978 and intensified between 1981 and 1983 with more than 1,000 homicides, as rival clans fought each other and against the state, with judges, prosecutors and politicians prominent in the fight against organised crime themselves becoming targets.  Read more…

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Giovanni Battista Pergolesi – composer

Brief career of 'opera buffa' genius

Opera composer Giovanni Battista Pergolesi was born on this day in 1710 as Giovanni Battista Draghi, in Jesi, in what is now the province of Ancona.  He later acquired the name Pergolesi, the Italian word for the residents of Pergola in Marche, which had been the birthplace of his ancestors.  Pergolesi was the most important early composer of opera buffa - comic opera. He wrote a two-act buffa intermezzo for one of his serious operas, which later became a popular work in its own right.  He also wrote sacred music and his Stabat Mater, composed in 1736, has been used in the soundtracks of many contemporary films.  Pergolesi received a musical education at the Conservatorio dei Poveri in Naples where he gained a good reputation as a violinist.  In 1732 he was appointed maestro di cappella to the Prince of Stigliano in Naples and produced for him an opera buffa, Lo frate ‘nnammorato, and a sacred work, believed to be his Mass in D, which were both well received.  The following year his serious opera, Il prigionier superbo, was produced but it was the comic intermezzo, La serva padrona, inserted between the acts, that was most popular, revealing his gift for comic characterisation.  Read more…

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