12 March

Gaspare Campari - drinks maker

Bar owner who created classic red aperitif

Gaspare Campari, whose desire to mix distinctive and unique drinks for the customers of his bar in Milan resulted in the creation of the iconic Campari aperitif, was born on this day in 1828 in Cassolnovo, a small town approximately 30km (19 miles) southwest of the northern city.  He founded the company, subsequently developed by his sons, Davide and Guido, that would grow to such an extent that, as Gruppo Campari, it is now the sixth largest producer of wines, spirits and soft drinks in the world with a turnover of more than €1.8 billion.  Gaspare was the 10th child born into a farming family in the province of Pavia, where Cassolnovo is found, but he had no ambition to work on the land.  After working in a local bar, at the age of 14 he went to Turin, then the prosperous capital of the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia.  He obtained an apprenticeship to Giacomo Bass, the Swiss proprietor of a pastry and liqueur shop on Piazza Castello.  He is also said to have worked at the historic Ristorante Del Cambio, on Piazza Carignano, as a waiter and dishwasher.  In 1850, by then in his early 20s and armed with the knowledge he had acquired in about eight years in Turin, he moved to Novara.  Read more…

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Gianni Agnelli - business giant

Head of Fiat more powerful than politicians

The businessman Gianni Agnelli, who controlled the Italian car giant Fiat for 40 years until his death in 2003, was born on this day in 1921 in Turin.  Under his guidance, Fiat - Fabbrica Italiana di Automobili Torino, founded by his grandfather, Giovanni Agnelli, in 1899 - became so huge that at one time in the 1990s, literally every other car on Italy's roads was produced in one of their factories.  As its peak, Fiat made up 4.4 per cent of the Italian economy and employed 3.1 percent of its industrial workforce.  Although cars remained Fiat's principal focus, the company diversified with such success, across virtually all modes of transport from tractors to Ferraris and buses to aero engines, and also into newspapers and publishing, insurance companies, food manufacture, engineering and construction, that there was a time when Agnelli controlled more than a quarter of the companies on the Milan stock exchange.  His personal fortune was estimated at between $2 billion and $5 billion, which made him the richest man in Italy and one of the richest in Europe.  It was hardly any surprise, then, that he became one of the most influential figures in Italy.  Read more…

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Gabriele D’Annunzio – writer and patriot

Military hero influenced Mussolini with his distinctive style

Poet, playwright and political leader Gabriele D’Annunzio was born on this day in 1863 in Pescara in Abruzzo.  He is considered to be the leading writer in Italy of the late 19th and early 20th centuries as well as being a military hero and a political activist. Some of his ideas and actions were believed to have influenced Italian Fascism and the style of the dictator, Benito Mussolini.  D’Annunzio was the son of a wealthy landowner and went to university in Rome. His first poetry was published when he was just 16 and the novels that made him famous came out when he was in his twenties.  At the age of 30 he began a long liaison with the actress Eleonora Duse and started writing plays for her. But his writing failed to pay for his extravagant lifestyle and he had to flee to France in 1910 because of his debts.  After Italy entered the First World War, D’Annunzio returned and plunged into the fighting, losing an eye during combat while serving with the air force. He became famous for his bold, individual actions, such as his daring flight over Vienna to drop thousands of propaganda leaflets and his surprise attack on the Austrian fleet with power boats when they were moored at Buccari Bay in what is now Croatia.  Read more…

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Pietro Andrea Mattioli – doctor

The first botanist to describe the tomato

Doctor and naturalist Pietro Andrea Gregorio Mattioli was born on this day in 1501 in Siena.  As the author of an illustrated work on botany, Mattioli provided the first documented example of an early variety of tomato that was being grown and eaten in Europe.  He is also believed to have described the first case of cat allergy, when one of his patients was so sensitive to cats that if he went into a room where there was a cat he would react with agitation, sweating and pallor.  Mattioli received his medical degree at the University of Padua in 1523 and practised his profession in Siena, Rome, Trento and Gorizia.  He became the personal physician to Ferdinand II, Archduke of Austria, in Prague and to Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor, in Vienna.  While working for the imperial court it is believed he tested the effects of poisonous plants on prisoners, which was a common practice at the time.  Mattioli’s interest in botany led him to describe 100 new plants and document the medical botany of his time in his Discorsi (Commentaries) on the Materia Medica of Dioscorides, a Greek physician and botanist.  Read more…

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11 March

Torquato Tasso – poet

Troubled Renaissance writer came back to Sorrento

Torquato Tasso, who has come to be regarded as the greatest Italian poet of the Renaissance, was born on this day in 1544 in Sorrento.  Tasso’s most famous work was his epic poem Gerusalemme Liberata (Jerusalem Delivered) in which he gives an imaginative account of the battles between Christians and Muslims at the end of the first crusade during the siege of Jerusalem.  He was one of the most widely read poets in Europe and his work was later to prove inspirational for other writers who followed him, in particular the English poets Spencer and Byron.  The house where Tasso was born on 11 March, 1544 is in Sorrento’s historic centre, a few streets away from the main square, Piazza Tasso, in Via Vittorio Veneto.  It now forms part of the Imperial Hotel Tramontano, where the words for the beautiful song, Torna a Surriento, were written by Giambattista De Curtis while he was sitting on its terrace in 1902.  Tasso travelled about in Italy constantly during his 51 years but came back to Sorrento towards the end of his life to visit his beloved sister Cornelia, at a time when he was deeply troubled with mental health problems.  Read more…

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Rigoletto debuts at La Fenice

Verdi opera staged after battle with censors

Giuseppe Verdi's opera Rigoletto was performed for the first time on this day in 1851 in Venice.  It enjoyed a triumphant first night at the Teatro La Fenice opera house, where the reaction of the audience was particularly gratifying for the composer and his librettist, Francesco Maria Piave, after a long-running battle to satisfy the censors.  Northern Italy was controlled by the Austrian Empire at the time and a strict censorship process applied to all public performances.  Verdi, who had accepted a commission to write an opera for La Fenice the previous year, knew he was likely to risk falling foul of the Austrians when he chose to base his work on Victor Hugo's play, Le roi s'amuse, which provoked such a scandal when it premiered in Paris in 1832 that it was cancelled after one night and had remained banned across France ever since.  Hugo's play depicted a king - namely Francis I of France - as a licentious womaniser who paid only lip service to what was considered moral behaviour as he constantly sought new conquests.  The French government had been horrified by the play's disrespectful portrayal of a monarch and the Austrians.  Read more…

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Etna’s biggest eruption

Sicily volcano spewed lava for four months

The largest eruption of the Mount Etna volcano in recorded history began on this day in 1669.  After several days of seismic activity in the area, a fissure measuring two metres wide and about 9km (5.6 miles) long opened up on the southeastern flank of the Sicilian mountain in the early hours of 11 March.  The lava that was spewed out of the enormous gash continued to flow for four months until the eruption was declared to be over on 16 July, a duration of 122 days.  Although stories of 20,000 deaths as a result of the eruption have been dismissed as myth, with no recorded evidence of any casualties, an estimated 15 towns and villages were destroyed as well as hundreds of buildings in the city of Catania, and some 27,000 people are thought to have been made homeless.  Mount Etna is situated in the northeastern vertex of the triangular island of Sicily. The most active volcano in Europe, it looms over the coastal city of Catania, which has a population within its metropolitan area of more than 1.1 million.  It has a long history of eruptions, going back at least to 396BC, when it reportedly thwarted an advance on Syracuse by the Carthanaginians.  Read more…

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Franco Basaglia - psychiatrist

Work led to closure of mental hospitals by law

The psychiatrist Franco Basaglia, whose work ultimately led to changes in the law that resulted in the closure and dismantling of Italy’s notorious psychiatric hospitals, was born on this day in 1924 in Venice.  As the founder of the Democratic Psychiatry movement and the main proponent of Law 180 - Italy's Mental Health Act of 1978 - which abolished mental hospitals, he is considered to be the most influential Italian psychiatrist of the 20th century.  His Law 180 - also known as Basaglia’s Law - had worldwide impact as other countries took up the Italian model and reformed their own way of dealing with the mentally ill.  Basaglia was born to a well-off family in the San Polo sestiere of Venice. He became an anti-Fascist in his teens and during the Second World War was an active member of the resistance in the city, to the extent that in December 1944, he was arrested and spent six months inside Venice’s grim Santa Maria Maggiore prison, being released only when the city was liberated in April of the following year.  He graduated in medicine and surgery from the University of Padua in 1949.  Read more…

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Sidney Sonnino – politician

Minister who pushed Italy to switch sides in World War One

Sidney Sonnino, the politician who was Italy’s influential Minister of Foreign Affairs during the First World War, was born on this day in 1847 in Pisa.  Sonnino led two short-lived governments in the early 1900s but it was as Foreign Affairs Minister in 1914 that he made his mark on Italian history, advising prime minister Antonio Salandra to side with the Entente powers – France, Great Britain and Russia – in the First World War, abandoning its Triple Alliance partnership with Germany and Austria-Hungary.  His motives were entirely driven by self-interest. A committed irredentist who saw the war as an opportunity to expand Italy's borders by reclaiming former territory, he reasoned that Austria-Hungary was unlikely to give back parts of Italy it had seized previously.  Instead, he sanctioned the secret Treaty of London with the Entente powers, which led Italy to declare war on Austria-Hungary in 2015.  In the event, although Sonnino backed the winning side, the promises made in the Treaty of London, namely that Italy would win territories in Tyrol, Dalmatia and Istria, were not fulfilled. Despite suffering major casualties, including 600,000 dead, Italy was granted only minor territorial gains.  Read more…

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10 March

NEW - Marcello Malpighi – scientist

Controversial doctor furthered the use of the microscope

Marcello Malpighi, who founded the science of microscopic anatomy, was born on this day in 1628 in Crevalcore, a town near Bologna in Emilia-Romagna.  Malpighi became a physician and biologist who developed experimental methods for studying human anatomy. As a result of his work, microscopic anatomy became a prerequisite for advances in the fields of physiology, embryology and practical medicine.  In 1646, at the age of 18, Malpighi went to study at Bologna University. Although both of his parents died when he was 21, he was fortunately able to continue with his studies.  He was granted doctorates in both medicine and philosophy in 1653 and appointed as a teacher by the university, despite not having been born in Bologna. He immediately set out to continue with his studies of anatomy and medicine.  In 1656, Ferdinand II of Tuscany invited Malpighi to be professor of theoretical medicine at the University of Pisa. After moving to Pisa, he developed what was to be a lifelong friendship with the mathematician and naturalist Giovanni Borelli.  Read more…

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Corrado Parnucci – architectural sculptor

Prolific artist whose work adorns cities of Michigan

The architectural sculptor Corrado Giuseppe Parnucci, who left his artistic mark on more than 600 buildings in Detroit and other cities in the US state of Michigan, was born on this day in 1900 in Buti, a Tuscan village about 15km (9 miles) east of Pisa.  Taken to live in America at the age of four, Parnucci – generally known as Joe – settled in Detroit after accepting some work there in 1924.  Among the Detroit landmarks with architectural embellishments by Parnucci are the Buhl Building, The Players, the Guardian Building, the David Stott Building, the Detroit Masonic Temple, the Detroit Historical Museum and the Wilson Theater.  Most of those buildings went up during the 1920s as the city’s skyline underwent huge change.  Parnucci also sculpted work for buildings in most other major Michigan cities, including Grand Rapids, Ann Arbor and Flint, and accepted numerous commissions from private individuals.  One of his masterpieces is the moulded plaster ceiling in the dining room of Meadowbrook Hall, the Tudor revival mansion built for Matilda Dodge, ex-wife of Dodge Motors co-founder John F Dodge.  Read more…

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Giuseppe Mazzini - hero of the Risorgimento

Revolutionary was ideological inspiration for Italian unification

Giuseppe Mazzini, the journalist and revolutionary who was one of the driving forces behind the Risorgimento, the political and social movement aimed at unifying Italy in the 19th century, died on this day in 1872 in Pisa.  Mazzini is considered to be one of the heroes of the Risorgimento, whose memory is preserved in the names of streets and squares all over Italy.  Where Giuseppe Garibaldi was the conquering soldier, Vittorio Emanuele the unifying king and Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour the statesman who would become Italy's first prime minister, Mazzini is perhaps best described as the movement's ideological inspiration.  Born in 1807, the son of a university professor in Genoa, Mazzini spent large parts of his life in exile and some of it in prison.  His mission was to free Italy of oppressive foreign powers, to which end he organised numerous uprisings that were invariably crushed. At the time of his death he considered himself to have failed, because the unified Italy was not the democratic republic he had envisaged, but a monarchy.  Yet an estimated 100,000 people turned out for his funeral in Genoa.  Read more…

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Lorenzo Da Ponte - writer and impresario

Colourful life of Mozart's librettist

The librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte, who could be described on two counts as a figure of considerable significance in the story of opera, was born on this day in 1749 in Ceneda - since renamed Vittorio Veneto - about 42km (26 miles) north of Treviso in the Veneto region.  Da Ponte wrote the words for 28 operas by 11 composers, including three of Mozart's greatest successes, Don Giovanni, The Marriage of Figaro and Così fan tutte.  He also opened New York City's first opera house in 1833 at the age of 84 and is credited with introducing the United States both to Mozart and Gioachino Rossini. Da Ponte was born Emanuele Conegliano at a time when Ceneda was a strongly Jewish community. His mother, Rachele, died when he was only five and at the age of 14 he was baptised as a Catholic along with his father, who wanted to marry a Catholic girl but could do so only if he converted.  In accordance with tradition, Emanuele took the name of the priest who baptised him, in his case the Bishop of Ceneda, Lorenzo Da Ponte.  Through the Bishop's influence, Emanuele and his two brothers were enrolled in the seminary of Ceneda and Lorenzo was ultimately ordained as a priest.   Read more…

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Marcello Malpighi – scientist

Controversial doctor furthered the use of the microscope

Marcello Malpighi's willingness to experiment
helped him make important discoveries

Marcello Malpighi, who founded the science of microscopic anatomy, was born on this day in 1628 in Crevalcore, a town near Bologna in Emilia-Romagna.

Malpighi became a physician and biologist who developed experimental methods for studying human anatomy. As a result of his work, microscopic anatomy became a prerequisite for advances in the fields of physiology, embryology and practical medicine.

In 1646, at the age of 18, Malpighi went to study at Bologna University. Although both of his parents died when he was 21, he was fortunately able to continue with his studies.

He was granted doctorates in both medicine and philosophy in 1653 and appointed as a teacher by the university, despite not having been born in Bologna. He immediately set out to continue with his studies of anatomy and medicine.

In 1656, Ferdinand II of Tuscany invited Malpighi to be professor of theoretical medicine at the University of Pisa. After moving to Pisa, he developed what was to be a lifelong friendship with the mathematician and naturalist Giovanni Borelli.

Malpighi questioned the medical teaching at Pisa and tried experiments on colour changes in blood and took a fresh look at anatomical, physiological and medical problems of the day. He returned to the University of Bologna in 1659 because of family responsibilities and his own ill health.

Malpighi's De Pulmonibus Observationes
Anatomice examined the lungs in detail

In 1661, he identified and described the pulmonary and capillary network connecting small arteries with small veins, which was one of the major discoveries in the history of science. But this discovery caused controversy and dissent among his colleagues.

Because of the hostile environment he was experiencing in Bologna, Malpighi accepted the offer to become professor of medicine at the University of Messina in Sicily in 1662. He was encouraged to further his career by Visconte Giacomo Ruffo Francavilla, a former student who was a patron of science. Malpighi carried on studying while teaching and practising medicine. He identified the taste buds and was the first to see red blood cells.

Malpighi returned to Bologna in 1667, where he studied the microscopic subdivisions of organs such as the liver, brain, spleen and kidneys and of bone and the deeper layers of the skin.

His work attracted the attention of the Royal Society in London, who began to publish his findings. In 1669 Malpighi became the first Italian to be named an honorary member of the Royal Society.

He also conducted many studies of insect larvae, the most important of which was his investigation in 1669 of the structure and development of the silkworm.

In 1684, opponents of his work set fire to his villa, destroyed his microscopes and his books and papers. However, in recognition of his standing and scientific achievements, Pope Innocent XII invited him to Rome to be his personal physician. In Rome he was honoured by being named a count, and was elected to the College of Doctors of Medicine. He remained in Rome until his death of apoplexy (an old-fashioned name for a stroke) in 1694 at the age of 66. In accordance with his wishes, an autopsy was performed on his remains.

Malpighi was buried in the church of Santi Gregorio e Siro in Bologna. There is now a marble monument to the scientist in the church with a Latin inscription remembering ‘his great genius, honest life, strong and tough mind and daring love for the medical art’.

He can be regarded as the first histologist and the founder of microscopical anatomy. His name has been given to physiological features such as the Malpighian corpuscles, Malpighian pyramids of the kidneys and the Malpighian skin layer.

Malpighi's statue in the main
square of Crevalcore

Travel tip:

Crevalcore, where Marcello Malpighi was born, is about 40km (25 miles) to the northwest of Bologna on the border with the province of Modena and is a stop on the Bologna-Verona railway line. The town centre of Crevalcore still has its 18th and 19th century layout and there is a bronze statue of Malpighi in the town’s main square.  The countryside around the town is dotted with beautiful country residences of the Bolognese nobility, such as the Castle of Palata Pepoli, the Castle of Galeazza Pepoli, the Palazzo Bevilacqua Ariosti and the complex of Villa Ronchi.

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The Church of Santi Gregori
e Siro in Bologna

Travel tip:

The Church of Santi Gregorio e Siro in Bologna, where Marcello Malpighi is buried, is a Renaissance style building in Via Montegrappa in the centre of Bologna. Initially it was the Church of San Gregorio, but when the nearby Church of San Siro was demolished, the names of the saints were combined. The church was damaged by an earthquake in 1780 and rebuilt to the design of the architect Angelo Venturoli. The interior has ceiling frescoes by Luigi Samoggia and Alessandro Guardassoni.

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Also on this day:

1749: The birth of librettist and entrepreneur Lorenzo Da Ponte

1872: The death of revolutionary hero Giuseppe Mazzini

1900: The birth of architectural sculptor Corrado Parnucci

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9 March

Amerigo Vespucci – explorer

Medici clerk who discovered a new world

Explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci was born on this day in 1454 in Florence.  Vespucci was the first to discover the ‘new world’, which later came to be called the Americas, taking the Latin version of his first name.  He was the son of a notary in Florence and a cousin of the husband of the beautiful artist’s model, Simonetta Vespucci. He was educated by his uncle, Fra Giorgio Antonio Vespucci, a Dominican friar, and he was later hired as a clerk by the Medici family.  He acquired the favour of Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici, who sent him to the Medici office in Cadiz in Spain to investigate the managers, who were under suspicion.  Later, as the executor of an Italian merchant who had died in Seville, Vespucci fulfilled the deceased’s contract with Castile to provide 12 vessels to sail to the Indies. He then continued supplying provisions for expeditions to the Indies and was invited by the King of Portugal to participate as an observer on several voyages of exploration.  Although letters have been forged and fraudulent claims have been made about his discoveries, Vespucci is known to have taken an active part in at least two real voyages of exploration.  Read more…

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Bettino Ricasoli - statesman and winemaker

Prime minister and inventor of modern Chianti wine

The politician and winemaker Barone Bettino Ricasoli was born on this day in 1809 in Florence.  Ricasoli, who is considered one of the driving forces of the Risorgimento alongside Giuseppe Mazzini, Count Camillo Benso of Cavour, Giuseppe Garibaldi and others, succeeded Cavour as prime minister in 1861, the second person to hold the office in the new Kingdom of Italy.  After withdrawing from politics, he concentrated on the family vineyards around the Castello di Brolio in the Tuscan hills between Siena and Arezzo, seat of the Ricasoli family since the early 12th century.  It was there in 1872, seeking to create a wine with universal appeal, that he developed the formula for Chianti wine that is still used today, made up of 70 per cent Sangiovese grapes, 15 per cent Canaiolo and 15 per cent Malvasia bianca.  Today Barone Ricasoli - the oldest wine producer in Italy and the second oldest in the world - is the largest winery in the Chianti Classico area, with 235 hectares of vines and 26 hectares of olive groves in the area around Gaiole and Castelnuovo Berardenga.  Bettino was the son of Baron Luigi Ricasolo and Elisabetta Peruzzi, who came from a family of Tuscan bankers.   Read more…

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Internazionale - football superpower

Famous club that broke away from rivals AC Milan

Internazionale, one of Italy's most successful football clubs, came into being on this day in 1908.  The winner 18 times of lo scudetto - the Italian championship - the club known often as Inter or Inter-Milan was born after a split within the membership of the Milan Cricket and Football Club, forerunner of the club known now as A C Milan.  The original club was established by expatriate British football enthusiasts with a membership restricted to Italian and British players. It was after a dispute over whether foreign players should be signed that a breakaway group formed.  Plans for a new club were drawn up at a meeting at the Ristorante L'Orologio in Via Giuseppe Mengoni in Milan, a short distance from the opera house, Teatro alla Scala.  It was a restaurant popular with theatregoers and artists, among them Giorgio Muggiani, a painter who would become renowned for his work in advertising, where he designed iconic posters for such clients as Pirelli, Cinzano, Martini and Moto Guzzi.  Muggiani, who had developed an enthusiasm for football while studying in Switzerland, was the driving force behind the new club.  Read more…

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Nabucco premieres in Milan

Verdi opera that became a symbol of the Risorgimento

The opera Nabucco, with music by Giuseppe Verdi and a libretto by Temistocle Solera, was first performed on this day in 1842 at Teatro alla Scala in Milan.  The opera contains the famous chorus Va, pensiero, a lament for a lost homeland that many Italians now regard as their unofficial national anthem.  The opera and Verdi himself have become synonymous with the Risorgimento, the period in the 19th century when people worked to free the Italian states of foreign domination and unite them under the leadership of Victor Emmanuel, the King of Sardinia and Duke of Savoy.  It is said that during the last years of the Austrian occupation of Lombardia and the Veneto, for example, that Italian patriots adopted Viva Verdi as a slogan and rallying call, using the composer’s name as an acronym for 'Vittorio Emanuele Re d’Italia' - 'Victor Emmanuel, King of Italy'.  On the day of the composer’s funeral in Milan in 1901, a crowd of 300,000 people filled the streets and sang Va, pensiero, conducted by Arturo Toscanini, a moving event that showed how Verdi’s music had helped unite the Italian nation.  But Verdi nearly didn’t take up the offer to compose the music for Nabucco.  Read more…

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Emma Bonino – politician

Leading Radical learnt Arabic to understand Middle East press

Veteran politician Emma Bonino, who most recently served as Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Government of Enrico Letta, was born on this day in 1948 in Bra in Piedmont.  A leading member of the Italian Radicals, Bonino has throughout her career been an activist for reform policies and a campaigner for women's and human rights.  Bonino graduated in modern languages and literature from Bocconi University in Milan in 1972. She founded the Information Centre on Sterilisation and Abortion in 1975 and promoted the referendum that led to the legalisation of abortion in Italy.  She was first elected to the Italian Chamber of Deputies in 1976 and was re-elected six times afterwards.  In 1986 Bonino was among the promoters of a referendum against nuclear energy, which led to the rejection of a civil nuclear energy programme in Italy.  She was appointed minister for international trade in the cabinet of Romano Prodi in 2006 but resigned her post in 2008 after being elected a vice president of the Senate. She had previously been elected to a seat in the Senate on the list of the Democratic party for the Piedmont Constituency.  Read more…

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8 March

Antonello Venditti - enduring music star

Roman singer-songwriter's career spans almost 50 years

Singer-songwriter Antonello Venditti, one of Italy's most popular and enduring stars of contemporary music, was born on this day in 1949 in Rome.   Famous in the 1970s for the strong political and social content of many of his songs, Venditti can look back on a career spanning almost half a century, in which he has sold more than 30 million records.  Taking into account singles, studio and live albums and compilations, Venditti has released more than 100 recordings.  His biggest success came with the 1988 album In questo mondo di ladri - In this world of thieves - which sold 1.5 million copies, making it jointly the eighth best-selling album in Italian music history.  Venditti's music ranges from folk to soft rock, often with classical overtones. He enjoyed sustained success in the 1980s and 90s, when Cuore - Heart - Benvenuti in Paradiso - Welcome to Paradise - and Prendilo tu questo frutto amaro - Take this bitter fruit - all sold well.  His versatility as a singer was demonstrated with the 1979 album Buona Domenica, which contained several ballads including one, Modena, which was regarded as among his finest songs.  Read more…

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La Festa della Donna – Women’s Day

Bright fragrant mimosa signals respect

La Festa della Donna - Women’s Day - is celebrated in Italy on this day every year and is an occasion for men to show their appreciation for the women in their lives.  In many parts of Italy today, men will be seen carrying bunches of prettily wrapped mimosa to give to women who are special to them.  The flowers might be for their wives, girlfriends, mothers, friends or even employees and are meant as a sign of respect for womanhood.  The custom of men giving mimosa to their ladies began in the 1940s after the date 8 March was chosen as the Festa della Donna in Italy.  The date, which coincides with International Women's Day, has a political significance for campaigners for women's rights in Italy, marking the anniversary of a strike by female textile workers in New York in 1857 and the so-called 'bread and peace' strike by women in Russia in 1917, but has more recently become a celebration similar to Mothering Sunday or St Valentine's Day.  Yellow mimosa was chosen as the flower to give because it is in bloom at the beginning of March, it is relatively inexpensive, and the scent of it in the atmosphere is a sign that primavera (spring) is near.  Read more…

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Carlo Gesualdo – composer

Madrigal writer was also a murderer

Carlo Gesualdo da Venosa, who composed highly experimental music for his time, was born on this day in 1566 in the principality of Venosa, then part of the Kingdom of Naples.  He was to become known both for his extraordinary music and for the brutal killing of his first wife and her aristocratic lover after he caught them together.  Gesualdo was the nephew of Carlo Borromeo, who later became Saint Charles Borromeo. His mother, Geronima Borromeo, was the niece of Pope Pius IV.  Although Gesualdo was sent to Rome to begin an ecclesiastical career, he became heir to the principality after his older brother died. He married his cousin, Donna Maria D’Avalos, and they had a son, Emanuele.  Gesualdo was devoted to music from an early age and mixed with musicians and composers, learning to play the lute, harpsichord and guitar.  Donna Maria began an affair with Fabrizio Carafa, Duke of Andria and Count of Ruova, and one night in 1590 Gesualdo caught them in flagrante at the Palazzo San Severo in Naples. He killed them both on the spot.  A delegation of officials from Naples inspected the room where they were killed and found the corpses were mutilated.  Read more…

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Gianni Baget Bozzo – priest and politician

Theologian moved from party to party

Prolific writer, ordained Catholic priest and political activist Gianni Baget Bozzo - often referred to as Don Gianni - was born on this day in 1925 in Savona in the northern Italian region of Liguria.  He took the name Baget from his mother, who was of Catalan origin but died when he was five, and Bozzo from the two uncles who raised him.  Baget Bozzo was known for supporting parties from both ends of the political spectrum at different times.  At one time a Christian Democrat activist, Baget Bozzo was elected as a Member of the European Parliament for the Italian Socialist party in 1984, which led to him being suspended from the priesthood. He was a member of Silvio Berlusconi’s centre-right Forza Italia party from 1994.  He wrote many books about Christianity and as a theologian was a follower of the theories of Joseph Ratzinger, who became Pope Benedict XVI in 2005.  Baget Bozzo was raised in Genoa where he graduated in law. He studied at the Pontificia Universita Gregoriana in Rome, which was established by Ignatius Loyola in 1551 as a school of grammar, humanity and Christian doctrine. It was more generally referred to as the Roman College. After graduating Baget Bozzo was ordained as a priest in 1949.  Over the years he contributed to many newspapers, in particular La Repubblica and he wrote dozens of books.  Read more…

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7 March

Alessandro Manzoni – novelist

Writer who produced the greatest novel in Italian literature

Italy’s most famous novelist, Alessandro Manzoni, was born on this day in 1785 in Milan.  Manzoni was the author of I promessi sposi (The Betrothed), the first novel to be written in modern Italian, a language that could be understood by everyone.  The novel caused a sensation when it was first published in 1825. It looked at Italian history through the eyes of the ordinary citizen and sparked pro-unification feelings in many Italians who read it, becoming a symbol of the Risorgimento movement.  I promessi sposi is now considered to be the most important novel in Italian literature and is still required reading for many Italian schoolchildren.  Manzoni spent a lot of his childhood in Lecco, on Lago di Lecco, where his father’s family originated, and he chose to set his great work there.  Lago di Lecco is an arm of Lago di Como and is surrounded by dramatic mountain scenery that is so stunning it is said to have inspired Leonardo da Vinci for settings for his paintings.   More than two centuries later, fans of Manzoni’s novel continue to visit Lecco to see the places he described and the buildings featured in the book that remain.  Read more…

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Filippo Juvarra – architect

Baroque designer influenced the look of ‘royal Turin’

Architect and stage set designer Filippo Juvarra was born on this day in 1678 in Messina in Sicily.  Some of his best work can be seen in Turin today as he worked for Victor Amadeus II of Savoy from 1714 onwards. The buildings Juvarra designed for Turin made him famous and he was subsequently invited to work in Portugal, Spain, London and Paris.  Juvarra was born into a family of goldsmiths and engravers but moved to Rome in 1704 to study architecture with Carlo and Francesco Fontana.  He was commissioned to design stage sets to begin with, but in 1706 he won a contest to design the new sacristy at St Peter’s Basilica.  He then designed the small Antamoro Chapel for the church of San Girolamo della Carità with his friend, the French sculptor, Pierre Le Gros. He was later to design the main altar for the Duomo in Bergamo in Lombardy.   One of his masterpieces was the Basilica of Superga, built in 1731 on a mountain overlooking the city of Turin, which later became a mausoleum for the Savoy family.  It was said to have taken 14 years to flatten the mountain top.  Read more…

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Saint Thomas Aquinas - philosopher

Theologian who synthesised Aristotle’s ideas with principles of Christianity

Saint Thomas Aquinas, known in Italian as Tommaso d’Aquino, died on this day in 1274 at Fossanova near Terracina in Lazio.  A Dominican friar who became a respected theologian and philosopher, D’Aquino was canonised in 1323, less than 50 years after his death.  He was responsible for two masterpieces of theology, Summa theologiae and Summa contra gentiles. The first sought to explain the Christian faith to students setting out to study theology, the second to explain the Christian faith and defend it in the face of hostile attacks.  As a poet, D'Aquino wrote some of the most beautiful hymns in the church’s liturgy, which are still sung today.  D’Aquino is recognised by the Roman Catholic Church as its foremost philosopher and theologian and he had a considerable influence on the development of Western thought and ideas. His commentaries on Scripture and on Aristotle are an important part of his legacy and he is still regarded as the model teacher for those studying for the priesthood.  D’Aquino was born in Roccasecca in the province of Frosinone in about 1225 in the castle owned by his father, who was Count of Aquino.  Read more…

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Baldassare Peruzzi - architect and painter

Pupil of Bramante who left mark on Rome

The architect and painter Baldassare Peruzzi, who trained under Donato Bramante and was a contemporary of Raphael, was born on this day in 1481 in a small town near Siena.   Peruzzi worked in his home city and in Rome, where he spent many years as one of the architects of the St Peter’s Basilica project but where he was also responsible for two outstanding buildings in his own right - the Villa Farnesina and the Palazzo Massimo alle Colonne.  The Villa Farnesina, a summer house commissioned by the Sienese banker Agostino Chigi in the Trastevere district, is unusual for its U-shaped floor plan, with a five-bay loggia between the arms.  Raphael and Sebastiano del Piombo were among those who helped decorate the villa with frescoes, but Peruzzi is acknowledged as the chief designer, possibly aided by Giuliano da Sangallo. Some of the frescoed paintings on the walls of the interior rooms are also by Peruzzi. One example is the Sala delle Prospettive, in which the walls are painted to create the illusion of standing in an open-air terrace, lined by pillars, looking out over a continuous landscape.  Read more…

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