5 July 2022

5 July

NEW
- Diego Maradona joins Napoli


Argentina star hailed as a ‘messiah’ by Neapolitans

SSC Napoli, a club who had never won Italy’s Serie A since their formation in 1926 and lived in the shadow of the powerful clubs in the north of the country, stunned the football world on this day in 1984 by completing the world record signing of Argentina star Diego Maradona.  Maradona, who would captain his country as they won the World Cup in Mexico two years later, agreed to move to Napoli from Spanish giants Barcelona, who he had joined from Argentina club Boca Juniors in 1982.  Although the Catalan team had been keen to offload him after two years in which Maradona had never been far from controversy, his arrival in arguably the poorest major city in Italy, whose team had finished 10th and 12th in the previous two Serie A seasons, was still a sensation.  Maradona’s unveiling at the Stadio San Paolo on 5 July, 1984 attracted a crowd of 75,000 to the stadium. Napoli supporters were fanatical about their team despite their lack of success and were thrilled to have a distraction at a time when problems with housing, schools, buses, employment and sanitation were making daily life in Naples very difficult.  Read more…

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Roberto Locatelli - motorcycle racer

World champion who survived horror crash

The former world 125cc motorcycling champion Roberto Locatelli was born on this day in 1974 in the Lombardy city of Bergamo.  Locatelli won the 125cc title in 2000, riding an Aprilia for the Vasco Rossi Racing team, winning the Grand Prix of Malaysia, Italy, the Czech Republic, Spain and Japan to finish top of the standings, ahead of the Japanese rider Yoichi Ui.  He finished third in the standings in 2004, his next best performance, but because of the rule excluding riders over the age of 28 from competing in the 125cc class was obliged to focus on the 250cc category.  He enjoyed some success racing with the Toth team, obtaining two podium finishes in the 2006 season, including second place in Valencia, to finish fifth overall. The achievement won him a contract to ride for Gilera in 2007.  However, while practising for the Spanish Grand Prix in Jerez in March 2007 Locatelli suffered an horrific crash, losing control of his bike and slammed into a trackside tyre wall at an estimated speed of 150kph (93mph).  He was taken to Cadiz hospital and placed in a medically-induced coma. Tests ruled out brain damage, but every bone in the rider’s face was broken, in addition to a fractured left collarbone, a dislocated left ankle, and a punctured lung.  Read more…

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Alberto Gilardino - World Cup winner

Prolific goalscorer now on coaching ladder

The footballer Alberto Gilardino, who was an important member of Italy’s 2006 World Cup-winning squad and is one of the all-time top 10 goalscorers in Serie A, was born on this day in 1982 in the province of Biella in Piedmont.  A striker, Gilardino, who enjoyed his peak years as a player with Parma, AC Milan and Fiorentina, totalled 188 goals in Serie A matches, putting him ninth on the all-time list.  He had scored 100 Serie A goals by the age of 26, one of the youngest to achieve that milestone.  As an Italy international, he played under coaches Marcello Lippi, Roberto Donadoni and Cesare Prandelli, scoring 19 goals in 57 appearances, having made his mark previously in the country’s Under-21 team, for whom he was all-time top scorer with 19 goals in 30 games and was captain of the side that won the 2004 European Under-21 championships.  Under Lippi, he was a key figure at the 2006 World Cup, starting all three group games and the first knock-out round alongside Luca Toni, scoring Italy’s goal against the United States in the group stages. He lost his place to Roma’s Francesco Totti in the later knock-out rounds.  Read more...

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Gianfranco Zola – footballer

Brilliant forward voted Chelsea’s all-time greatest player

Gianfranco Zola, a sublimely talented footballer whose peak years were spent with Napoli, Parma and Chelsea, was born on this day in 1966 in the Sardinian town of Oliena.  Capped 35 times by the Italian national team, Zola scored more than 200 goals in his club career, the majority of them playing at the highest level, including 90 in Italy’s top flight – Serie A – and 58 in the English Premier League.  He specialised in the spectacular, most of his goals resulting from his brilliant execution of free kicks or his dazzling ball control.  Zola went on to be a manager after his playing career ended, although he has so far been unable to come anywhere near matching his achievements as a player.  He was probably at his absolute peak during the seven years he spent playing in England with Chelsea, whose fans named him as the club’s greatest player of all time in a poll conducted in 2003, shortly before he left to return to Sardinia.  However, it was probably the four years he spent with Napoli, his first Serie A club, that were his making as a player, after being spotted playing club football in Sardinia for Nuorese and Torres.  Read more…

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Giovanni Sforza – Lord of Pesaro and Gradara

Military leader was briefly married to Lucrezia Borgia

Giovanni Sforza d’Aragona was born on this day in 1466 in Pesaro in the region of Le Marche.  The illegitimate son of Costanzo I Sforza, Giovanni became part of the powerful Sforza family and inherited his father’s titles when he was just 17, as Costanzo I died leaving no legitimate children.  Giovanni Sforza is mainly remembered for being the first husband of Lucrezia Borgia, but he was also a condottiero - a professional army commander -  who fought military campaigns and ruled over Pesaro and Gradara from 1483 until his death.  In 1489 Sforza married Maddalena Gonzaga, the daughter of Federico I of Mantua, but she died the following year.  As Giovanni was related to the Sforza branch who ruled the Duchy of Milan, he was regarded as a valuable connection by the Borgias and with the help of Giovanni’s cousin, Cardinal Ascanio Sforza, the Borgias arranged a marriage between Giovanni, who was by then in his twenties and Lucrezia, the 12-year-old illegitimate daughter of the Borgia pope, Alexander VI.  A proxy marriage took place on 12 June 1492 as the contract stipulated that Lucrezia would stay in Rome and not consummate the marriage for a year.  Read more…

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Paolo Rossi's World Cup hat-trick

Spain 1982: Italy defeat Brazil in classic match

Italians were celebrating up and down the country on this day 34 years ago as striker Paolo Rossi turned from villain to hero with a magnificent hat-trick to knock hot favourites Brazil out of the 1982 World Cup finals in Spain.  The Juventus forward had served a two-year suspension for his role in an alleged match-fixing scandal while on loan with Perugia and was controversially selected for the World Cup by Italy coach Enzo Bearzot.  He had returned to action in Serie A late in the 1981-82 season after his ban was lifted less than six weeks before the finals were due to begin. Critics argued that with so little preparation time he could not possibly be match fit.  Boasting stars such as Zico, Falcão, Éder and Sócrates, the 1982 Brazil side was reckoned to be at least the equal of the team of Pelé, Rivellino, Tostão and Jairzinho that won the 1970 World Cup in such flamboyant, thrilling style.  Some say the 1982 vintage was even better. What is true is that they needed only to avoid defeat against Italy in their final match in the second group phase in the Estadio Sarrià in Barcelona to reach the semi-finals.  Italy, by contrast, had been uninspiring.  Read more…

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Diego Maradona joins Napoli

Argentina star hailed as a ‘messiah’ by Neapolitans

Diego Maradona helped SSC Napoli to reach the top of the Italian football world
Diego Maradona helped SSC Napoli to
reach the top of the Italian football world
SSC Napoli, a club who had never won Italy’s Serie A since their formation in 1926 and lived in the shadow of the powerful clubs in the north of the country, stunned the football world on this day in 1984 by completing the world record signing of Argentina star Diego Maradona.

Maradona, who would captain his country as they won the World Cup in Mexico two years later, agreed to move to Napoli from Spanish giants Barcelona, who he had joined from Argentina club Boca Juniors in 1982.

Although the Catalan team had been keen to offload him after two years in which Maradona had never been far from controversy, his arrival in arguably the poorest major city in Italy, whose team had finished 10th and 12th in the previous two Serie A seasons, was still a sensation.

Maradona’s unveiling at the Stadio San Paolo on 5 July, 1984 attracted a crowd of 75,000 to the stadium. Napoli supporters were fanatical about their team despite their lack of success and were thrilled to have a distraction at a time when problems with housing, schools, buses, employment and sanitation were making daily life in Naples very difficult.

The world record fee of £6.9 million was funded in part by a loan arranged by a local politician. 

Napoli fans immediately identified with Maradona, who hailed from a working class background in Buenos Aires and made his name playing with a club, Boca Juniors, which represented a part of the city that was home to many ex-patriate Italians and their descendants. 

Maradona was unveiled before
75,000 fans at the Stadio San Paolo
The move to Napoli suited Maradona, who had some debts at the time but was able to pay them off with his signing-on fee and the money made by selling off his home in Catalonia.

Within three seasons, with Maradona captain, Napoli had won the Serie A championship. At a time when Italy’s north-south divide was being sharply felt in the south with a wide economic disparity between the two halves of the country, the reaction in the city was tumultuous. 

Neapolitans spilled out onto the streets to hold impromptu parties and motor cavalcades turning Naples into a carnival city for a week. Napoli fans painted coffins in the colours of northern giants Juventus and Milan and burned them in mock funerals. 

Ancient, crumbling buildings around the city were decorated with huge murals of Maradona, whose face was in every shop window. Suddenly, Diego became the most popular name for newborn baby boys.

The 1986-87 title season was only the start.  Napoli were runners-up in Serie A for the next two seasons and won the title again in 1989-90, also winning the Coppa Italia in 1987, the UEFA Cup in 1989 and the Italian Supercup in 1990. 

Although he was primarily an attacking midfielder rather than an out-and-out striker, Maradona was the top scorer in Serie A in 1987–88 with 15 goals, amassing 115 goals in his seven-year stay at the club, which made him Napoli’s all-time leading goalscorer until the record was surpassed by Marek Hamšík in 2017.

Maradona’s relationship with the fans soured a little after his Argentina side defeated Italy in the semi-final of the World Cup in Naples in 1990, after which it broke down completely when his cocaine use led to him repeatedly missing training sessions and some matches, leading ultimately to a 15-month ban and a departure from the club somewhat in disgrace.

Yet to many in Naples he remained a hero and shortly after his death in September 2020, Napoli’s Stadio San Paolo home ground was renamed the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona.

The Palazzo Reale is a legacy of the wealth of Naples in the 17th and 18th centuries
The Palazzo Reale is a legacy of the wealth of
Naples in the 17th and 18th centuries
Travel tip:

In recent years, Naples has become the poorest of Italy’s major cities, but in the 17th and 18th centuries it was one of Europe's great cities and many of the city’s finest buildings are a legacy of that period. In the area around Piazza del Plebiscito, for example, you can see the impressive Palazzo Reale, which was one of the residences of the Kings of Naples at the time the city was capital of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. The palace is home to a 30-room museum and the largest library in southern Italy, both now open to the public. Close to the royal palace is one of the oldest opera houses in the world, built for a Bourbon King of Naples. Teatro di San Carlo was officially opened on 4 November 1737, some years before La Scala in Milan and La Fenice in Venice. Part of the Bourbon legacy to Naples is the vast Reggia di Caserta, the royal palace commissioned in 1752 by Charles VII of Naples and built by the Italian architect Luigi Vanvitelli along the lines of the French royal palace at Versailles.

The Stadio San Paolo - now the Stadio Diego Armando
Maradona - is the third largest football ground in Italy
Travel tip:

The Stadio San Paolo - now renamed the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona - is Italy’s third largest football ground with a capacity of just over 60,000. Built in the Fuorigrotta neighbourhood on the north side of the city, it was completed in 1959, more than 10 years after work began and has since been renovated twice, including for the 1990 World Cup. The home of SSC Napoli, it was Maradona’s home stadium between 1984 and 1991. The suburb of Fuorigrotta, the most densely populated area of the city, lies beyond the Posillipo hill and has been joined to the main body of Naples by two traffic tunnels that pass through the hill since the early 20th century. The suburb is also the home of the vast Mostra d’Oltremare, one of the largest exhibition complexes in Italy, built in 1937 to host the Triennale d'Oltremare, the aim of which was to celebrate the colonial expansion envisaged by the Fascist dictator Mussolini.

Also on this day:

1466: The birth of military leader Giovanni Sforza

1966: The birth of footballer Gianfranco Zola

1974: The birth of motorcycling champion Roberto Locatelli

1982: The birth of footballer Alberto Gilardino

1982: Paolo Rossi’s hat-trick defeats Brazil at the 1982 World Cup


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4 July 2022

4 July

Gina Lollobrigida – actress

Movie star who became photojournalist

Film star Gina Lollobrigida was born Luigina Lollobrigida on this day in 1927 in Subiaco in Lazio.  At the height of her popularity as an actress in the 1950s and early 1960s she was regarded as a sex symbol all over the world. In later life she worked as a photo journalist and has supported Italian and American good causes. In 2013 she sold her jewellery collection and donated the money she raised, in the region of five million dollars, to fund stem cell therapy research.  One of four daughters of a furniture manufacturer and his wife, as a young girl, Lollobrigida did some modelling, entered beauty contests and had minor roles in Italian films. She studied painting and sculpture at school and claimed in later life that she became an actress "by mistake". When she was 20 she entered the Miss Italia competition and came third. The publicity she received helped her get parts in European films but she turned down the chance to work in America after initially agreeing a seven-year contract with the American entrepreneur Howard Hughes. After she refused the terms of her contract, it took nine years for a legal dispute to be resolved.  She received a BAFTA nomination and won a Nastro d’Argento award for her performance in Bread, Love and Dreams (Pane, amore e fantasia). Read more…

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Giuseppe ‘Nuccio’ Bertone – car designer

The man behind the classic Alfa Romeo Giulietta Sprint

Automobile designer Giuseppe Bertone, who built car bodies for Alfa Romeo, Fiat, Lamborghini, Ferrari and many other important names in the car industry, was born on this day in 1914 in Turin.  Nicknamed ‘Nuccio’ Bertone, he was regarded as the godfather of Italian car design. His career in the automobile industry spanned six decades.  His father Giovanni was a skilled metalworker who made body parts for cars in a workshop he founded two years before Giuseppe was born.  Giovanni had been born in 1884 into a poor farming family near the town of Mondovi, in southern Piedmont. He had moved to Turin in 1907 and became gripped by the automobile fever that swept the city.  It was under the direction of his son that the company – Carrozzeria Bertone – was transformed after the Second World War into an industrial enterprise, specialising at first in design but later in the manufacture of car bodies on a large scale.  An accountant by qualification, Nuccio joined his father's firm in 1933, although his passion at first was racing cars as a driver. He raced Fiats, OSCAs, Maseratis, and Ferraris.  Read more…

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Luigi Guido Grandi – monk, philosopher and mathematician

Man of religion who advanced mathematical knowledge

Luigi Guido Grandi, who published mathematical studies on the cone and the curve, died on this day in 1742 in Pisa.  He had been court mathematician to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Cosimo III de’ Medici, and because he was also an engineer, he was appointed superintendent of water for the Duchy.  Grandi was born in 1671 in Cremona and was educated at the Jesuit College in the city.  He joined the Camaldolese monks at Ferrara when he was 16 and a few years later he was sent to the monastery of St Gregory the Great in Rome to complete his studies in philosophy and theology in preparation for taking holy orders.  Having become a professor in both subjects at a monastery in Florence, he became interested in mathematics, which he studied privately.  Grandi soon developed such a reputation in the field of mathematics that he was appointed court mathematician by Cosimo III.  While also serving as Superintendent of Water at the Medici court, he was involved in the drainage of the Chiana valley, which runs north to south between Arezzo and Orvieto.  Read more… 

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3 July 2022

3 July

Flavio Insinna - actor and presenter

Star of TV dramas turned game show host

The actor and presenter Flavio Insinna, who is the host of Italy’s popular television game show L’eridità and was formerly the face of Affari tuoi - the Italian version of Deal or No Deal - was born on this day in 1965 in Rome. In a broad-ranging career, Insinna has run up an impressive list of credits in cinema, theatre and television as well as publishing an autobiography and a novel. He is also known for his philanthropy after donating his 49-foot boat Roxana to humanitarian organisation Médecins Sans Frontières to help rescue Syrian refugees.  In a substantial catalogue of television drama and comedy appearances, notable was Insinna’s portrayal of the Carabinieri captain Flavio Anceschi in the popular Rai Uno series Don Matteo, with Terence Hill and Nino Frassica.  Ironically, Insinna’s ambition after obtaining his Liceo Classico diploma from Rome’s Augusto high school in 1984, had been to become a Carabinieri officer but after failing to gain admission to the elite police force’s training college he opted for acting. He enrolled at the drama school run by the Polish-Italian dramatist Alessandro Fersen and later joined the drama laboratory led by the Rome-born singer and actor Gigi Proietti, who had been one of his heroes growing up.  Read more…

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Ulisse Stacchini - architect

Designer behind two famous Milan landmarks

Ulisse Stacchini, the architect who designed two of Milan's most famous 20th century landmarks, was born on this day in 1871 in Florence.  A champion of Liberty-style Art Nouveau designs, Stacchini's defining work was the gargantuan Stazione di Milano Centrale - the city's main railway terminal.  He also designed the stadium that evolved into the city's iconic Stadio Giuseppe Meazza, joint home of Milan's two major football clubs, Internazionale and AC Milan.  Stacchini studied in Rome and moved to Milan soon after graduating, setting up a partnership with the engineer Giulio de Capitani, building houses, offices and shops for private clients.  Among his early projects was the Savini Caffè in the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II.  His style can be seen in a number of town houses commissioned by wealthy patrons, including Via Gioberti 1 at Via Revere 7, which feature linear designs.  He became involved with the Milano Centrale project when he won a design competition in 1912, although construction was delayed by more than a decade because of the crisis in the Italian economy that followed the First World War.  Read more…

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Alessandro Blasetti - film director

Reputation tarnished by links with Mussolini

Alessandro Blasetti, the film director sometimes referred to as ‘the father of Italian cinema’ for the part he played in reviving the film industry in Italy in the late 1920s and 30s, was born on this day in 1900 in Rome.  In his directing style, Blasetti was seen as ahead of his time, even in his early days.  His films were often shot on location, used many non-professional actors and had the characteristics of the neorealism that would make Italian cinema famous in the post-War years.  Yet he will forever be seen by some critics as an apologist for Fascism, a charge which stems mainly from his support for at least part of the ideology of Benito Mussolini, which led to a number of his films being interpreted as Fascist propaganda, although the evidence in some cases was rather thin.  The son of an oboe professor at Rome’s Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Blasetti graduated in law from the Sapienza University of Rome.   Married in 1923, his first job was as a bank clerk but after a year he began to work as a journalist and wrote the first film column to appear in an Italian national newspaper.  He used his position to campaign for a revival of film production in Italy.  Read more…

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Walter Veltroni - politician

Popular former communist twice elected Mayor of Rome

The politician Walter Veltroni, who was the first leader of Italy’s centre-left Democratic Party (Partito Democratico) and was twice elected Mayor of Rome, was born on this day in 1955 in Rome.  A popular figure, Veltroni helped the PD reach a level of influence in Italian politics that enabled them to provide the leaders of three consecutive governments in Enrico Letta, Matteo Renzi and Paolo Gentiloni before the centre-left were routed at the 2018 general election.  Veltroni had such charisma and broad appeal that he was often tipped as a future prime minister, but his star began to wane after he lost the April 2008 general election in a head-to-head with Silvio Berlusconi’s centre-right People of Freedom party.  He had stepped down as Mayor of Rome in order to focus on winning the election so defeat was a crushing blow.  In February 2009, following a heavy defeat for PD in regional elections in Sardinia and amid clashes within the party, he resigned as leader, giving way to his former deputy, Dario Franceschini.  Veltroni's political career had begun in 1976, when he was elected as a Rome city councillor as a member of the Italian Communist Party (PCI).  Read more…


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2 July 2022

2 July

Palio di Siena

First of two annual races contested on 2 July

The first of the two annual contests for the historic Palio di Siena takes place in Piazza del Campo on 2 July.  The passionately competitive horse race, first run in 1656, is staged on this date and 16 August each year. The first race is in honour of Siena's Madonna of Provenzano, the second forms part of the celebrations marking the Feast of the Assumption.  A colourful pageant, the Corteo Storico, precedes the race, which sees the square filled with spectators from many parts of the world.  The Palio features 10 horses, each representing one of Siena's 17 contrade, or wards, ridden bareback by riders wearing the colours of the contrada they represent.   They race for three circuits of a dirt track laid around the perimeter of the Piazza del Campo.  It is an event with no holds barred.  Riders are allowed to use the whip to encourage their own mounts but also to hamper their rivals and falls are frequent.  The winner is the horse that crosses the finishing line first, even if its rider is no longer on board.  Horses are trained specifically with the Palio in mind and 10 judged to be of approximately equal quality are chosen four days before the race.  Read more…

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Carlo Pisacane – socialist and revolutionary

Patriot who put deeds before ideas

Carlo Pisacane, Duke of San Giovanni, was killed on this day in 1857 at Sanza in Campania, while trying to provoke an uprising in the Kingdom of Naples.  Pisacane is remembered for coming up with the concept ‘propaganda of the deed’, an idea that influenced Mussolini and many rebels and terrorists subsequently.  He argued that violence was necessary, not only to draw attention or generate publicity for a cause, but to inform, educate and rally the masses to join in.  Pisacane was born into an impoverished but noble family in Naples in 1818.  He joined the Neapolitan army at the age of 20, but became interested in the political ideas of Giuseppe Mazzini and went to England and France before going to serve in the French army in Algeria.  After the revolution of 1848 he came back to Italy, where he played a part in the brief life of the Roman Republic. After the city was captured by the French he went into exile again in London.  Pisacane regarded the rule of the House of Savoy as no better than the rule of Austria and went to Genoa to involve himself with the uprisings planned by Mazzini and his followers.  Read more…

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Pierre Cardin - fashion designer

Star of Parisian haute couture was born in Italy

Pierre Cardin, who has been described as the last survivor of the heyday of Parisian haute couture in the 50s and 60s, was born on this day in 1922 in the province of Treviso, north of Venice.  There are differing versions of the story of Cardin’s Italian origins.  One says that his parents were French but had a holiday home in Italy and that he was born in the village of Sant’ Andrea di Barbarana, on the Piave river, where his parents had a house.  Another says that his father was Italian, a labourer, that he was born in another small town in the province, San Biagio di Callalta and that he was the last of 11 children. This version suggests his father was in his 60s when Pierre – christened Pietro – was born.  What is agreed is that the family left Italy for France in 1924, possibly because of his father’s unease at the rise of Mussolini and his opposition to Fascism.  They settled in the industrial city of Saint-Etienne, where Pierre began his career in the clothing industry in 1936 when he was taken on as a tailor’s apprentice.  He moved to Vichy in 1939 and worked during the Second World War for the Red Cross before relocating to Paris in 1945, determined to make his name in the fashion world.  Read more…


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1 July 2022

1 July

NEW
- Achille Varzi - racing driver

Death on track led to mandatory wearing of crash helmets

Italian motor racing fans were in mourning on this day in 1948 when it was announced that Achille Varzi, whose rivalry with fellow driver Tazio Nuvolari made frequent headlines during the 1930s, had been killed in an accident while practising for the Swiss Grand Prix.  Although the sun was shining, an earlier downpour had left parts of the Bremgarten circuit outside Berne very wet and Varzi’s Alfa Romeo 158 was travelling at 110mph when he arrived at a corner that was both wet and oily.  The car spun several times and appeared to be coming to a stop but then flipped over. The helmetless Varzi was crushed beneath the car and died from his injuries at the age of 43.  His death was especially shocking because he was regarded as one of the more cautious drivers. Since beginning his career on two wheels in his teens he had suffered only one major accident, in stark contrast to Nuvolari, whose daredevil tactics led him to have several serious crashes.  Whether Varzi would have survived with better protection is unknown, but his death did prompt motor racing’s governing body, the FIA, to make the wearing of crash helmets by drivers mandatory rather than optional. Read more…

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Alberto Magnelli - abstract painter

Self-taught artist whose work became known as Concrete Art

The abstract painter Alberto Magnelli, who became a leading figure in the Concrete Art movement, was born on this day in 1888 in Florence.  Concrete Art is described as abstract art that is entirely free of any basis in observed reality and that has no symbolic meaning. It had strong geometric elements and clear lines and its exponents insisted the form should eschew impressionism and that a painting should have no other meaning than itself.  The movement took its name from the definition of concrete as an adjective rather than a noun, meaning ‘existing in a material or physical form’.  It became Magnelli’s focus after he moved to Paris in 1931. Until then, he had experimented in various genres.  He was born into a comfortable background in Florence, his father coming from a wealthy family of textile merchants.  He never studied art formally but would spend hours in museums and churches looking at paintings and frescoes. He particularly admired the Renaissance artists Andrea del Castagno, Paolo Uccello, and Piero della Francesca.  Magnelli’s first paintings were landscapes, which he began to produce while on holiday in the Tuscan countryside.  Read more…

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Gino Meneghetti - career burglar

Pisa-born criminal became legend in Brazil

Gino Amleto Meneghetti, a small-time thief in Italy who became a romanticised figure for his criminal exploits after emigrating to Brazil, was born on this day in 1878 in Pisa.  His early days were spent in a fishing village outside Pisa, but his father could find only low-paid work and moved the family to a different neighbourhood so he could take a job in a ceramics factory.  It was there that Gino fell in with a gang of boys who regularly engaged in petty crime, stealing fruit or chickens or other objects of minimal worth.  The young Meneghetti was arrested for the first time at 11 years of age.  After teenage years spent largely thieving, he made an attempt to change his life, going back to the classroom to learn to be a mechanic and a locksmith.  He found work and saved money, but then decided to move to Marseilles in France to live with an uncle, who owned a restaurant.  It was not a wise move. Like most large commercial ports, there was a seamier side to Marseilles and Meneghetti again fell into bad company.  His next arrest was for a more serious offence - illegal possession of weapons.  Found guilty, he spent some time in prison before being deported to Italy.  To avoid compulsory military service, Meneghetti feigned madness.  Read more…

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Clara Gonzaga – noblewoman

Countess from Mantua founded European dynasties

Clara (Chiara) Gonzaga, the eldest daughter of Federico I Gonzaga and Margaret of Bavaria, was born on this day in 1464 in Mantua.  One of her six children became Charles III, Duke of Bourbon and led the imperial army sent by Emperor Charles V against Pope Clement VII in what was to become the Sack of Rome in 1527.  Clara was also to feature as one of the characters in The Heptameron, a collection of 72 short stories written in French by the sister of King Francis I of France, Marguerite of Angouleme, who had been inspired by Giovanni Boccaccio’s The Decameron.  Clara had five siblings, including Francesco II Gonzaga, who married Isabella d’Este.  She was married at the age of 17 to Gilbert of Bourbon Montpensier. Four years later he succeeded his father as Count of Montpensier and Dauphin of Auvergne.  Clara and Gilbert had six children, but when she was just 32, Gilbert, who had also become Viceroy of Naples and the Duke of Sessa, died of a fever while in Pozzuoli near Naples, leaving her a widow.  Three years later, Clara acted as a mediator on behalf of her brother Francesco, who was trying to form an alliance with King Louis XII of France in order to protect Mantua.  Read more…

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Claudio Saracini – musician

Baroque songs have survived till modern times

Composer Claudio Saracini was born on this day in 1586 in or close to Siena in Tuscany.  He is one of the most highly regarded composers of his time and is known also to have played the lute and been a singer.  He became famous for composing monody, which is secular music for a single voice, and 133 of the songs he wrote in this style have survived till today.  Some of Saracini’s compositions are still recorded, often in collections along with works by other composers of the same era, such as Monteverdi, who is said to have admired him.  Saracini travelled widely and seems to have established useful connections abroad as he dedicated a lot of his music to foreign aristocrats. He also appeared to have absorbed some of the musical styles of the lands he visited in his own compositions.  A unique feature of his work is the influence of folk music, particularly music from the Balkans, which is rarely heard in early Baroque music.  Saracini’s music was all published in Venice between 1614 and 1624, before his death in 1630.  During the 20th century there was renewed interest in his work after it had been neglected for a long time.  Read more…


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Achille Varzi - racing driver

Death on track led to mandatory wearing of crash helmets

Varzi was never seen as a driver who was reckless at the wheel
Varzi was never seen as a driver
who was reckless at the wheel
Italian motor racing fans were in mourning on this day in 1948 when it was announced that Achille Varzi, whose rivalry with fellow driver Tazio Nuvolari made frequent headlines during the 1930s, had been killed in an accident while practising for the Swiss Grand Prix.

Although the sun was shining, an earlier downpour had left parts of the Bremgarten circuit outside Berne very wet and Varzi’s Alfa Romeo 158 was travelling at 110mph when he arrived at a corner that was both wet and oily.

The car spun several times and appeared to be coming to a stop but then flipped over. The helmetless Varzi was crushed beneath the car and died from his injuries at the age of 43.

His death was especially shocking because he was regarded as one of the more cautious drivers. Since beginning his career on two wheels in his teens he had suffered only one major accident, in stark contrast to Nuvolari, whose daredevil tactics led him to have several serious crashes.

Whether Varzi would have survived with better protection is unknown, but his death did prompt motor racing’s governing body, the FIA, to make the wearing of crash helmets by drivers mandatory rather than optional, a ruling many thought was long overdue.

The fearless Nuvolari won 24 Grands Prix but in spite of his more conservative style Varzi still won 17 of his own and his rivalry with Nuvolari has drawn comparisons with that of Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost half a century later.

Varzi at the wheel of his Bugatti T51 after winning his duel with rival Tazio Nuvolari at Monaco in 1933
Varzi at the wheel of his Bugatti T51 after winning
his duel with rival Tazio Nuvolari at Monaco in 1933
They were seen as contenders for the crown of Italy’s greatest driver, often competing against each other in Italy’s two great endurance races, the Mille Miglia, which Nuvolari won twice to Varzi’s once, and the Targa Florio, which both won twice each.

Born in 1904 in Galliate, a small town just outside the city of Novara in Piedmont, Varzi was the son of a wealthy cotton manufacturer.

Like Nuvolari, he began his career racing motorcycles, having the financial wherewithal to acquire some of the best machines of the day, such as those made by Garelli, Moto Guzzi and Sunbeam. 

He switched to cars in 1928, at first driving Type 35 Bugattis alongside Nuvolari, although he soon decided to go it alone, again taking advantage of his family’s wealth to buy himself a P2 Alfa Romeo, which was a superior car. He chalked up so many race wins in 1929 that Nuvolari felt he needed a P2 of his own. 

With a shrewd business brain in addition to his talent behind the wheel, Varzi would not hesitate to switch his allegiance if he felt it would be to his advantage and managed to drive for each major marque during their most successful periods: Alfa Romeo in the late 1920s and mid-’30s, Bugatti in the early 1930s, Auto-Union in the mid-1930s after Adolf Hitler began investing in German motorsport, and Maserati in the immediate pre-war years.

There were numerous races that came down to a straight fight between him and Nuvolari, one example of which was the 1933 Monaco Grand Prix, when the two Italians fought a duel along the narrow streets of the principality that the lead changed on almost every lap until Varzi ultimately broke away to win.

Varzi's car rounds a bend in the 1930 Targo Florio, the endurance race in Sicily, which he won
Varzi's car rounds a bend in the 1930 Targo Florio,
the endurance race in Sicily, which he won
Varzi’s peak was 1934, when he drove his P3 Alfa Romeo to victory in the prestigious Coppa Ciano as well as both the Mille Miglia and Targa Florio, and the Grands Prix of Tripoli, Penya Rhin and Nice.

He would have undoubtedly won more had he not begun what would prove to be a disastrous affair with Ilse Pietsch, the wife of one of his teammates at the Auto Union team, which he joined in 1935.

Apart from the tensions this caused in the Auto Union stable, the relationship had terrible consequences for Varzi’s career. It turned out Ilse Pietsch was addicted to the opioid morphine, a potent painkiller that can induce feelings of intense joy and euphoria when taken in large quantities.

She persuaded Varzi, by then in his early 30s, to sample it himself and he too soon became addicted. His performances suffered as well as his health. By then driving for Maserati, he won the inaugural San Remo Grand Prix in 1937 but little more was seen of him after that and it was not until the Second World War curtailed normal life that he was able to beat his addiction.

No longer with Pietsch, he went back to his former partner, Norma, and they were married. When motor racing resumed, he found success again, driving the Alfa 158. He won races in Argentina, where he decided he would retire once his track career had ended. 

A popular figure in Argentina, his name would live on in the Scuderia Achille Varzi, which was set up after his death to enable Juan Manuel Fangio and other Argentine drivers to compete in Europe.

After his death, Varzi’s body was returned to Galliate, his coffin placed on the chassis of a racing car inside the Church of Saints Peter and Paul. His  funeral attracted 15,000 people to the large Piazza Vittorio Veneto at the front of the church.

The skyline of Novara is dominated by the 121m dome of the Basilica of San Gaudenzio
The skyline of Novara is dominated by the 121m
dome of the Basilica of San Gaudenzio
Travel tip:

With a population of more than 100,000, Novara is the second largest city in the Piedmont region after Turin. Founded by the Romans, it became an important crossroads for commercial traffic along the routes from Milan to Turin and from Genoa to Switzerland. It was later ruled by the Visconti and Sforza families. In the 18th century it was ruled by the House of Savoy. In 1849, the defeat of the Sardinian army by the Austrian army at the Battle of Novara led to the abdication of Charles Albert of Sardinia and is seen as the beginning of the Italian unification movement.  Among the fine old buildings in Novara, which include the Basilica of San Gaudenzio, with its tower-dome designed by Alessandro Antonelli, who also designed Turin's landmark Mole Antonelliana, and the Broletto, a collection of buildings showing four distinct architectural styles, is the Novara Pyramid, which is also called the Ossuary of Bicocca, which was built to hold the ashes of fallen soldiers after the Battle of Novara.

The impressive Sforzesco Castle is one of the main features of the historically strategic town of Galliate
The impressive Sforzesco Castle is one of the main features
of the historically strategic town of Galliate
Travel tip:

Galliate, where Varzi was born, is notable for the Sforzesco Castle, which stands on the town’s central square, the Piazza Vittorio Veneto, opposite the Church of Saints Peter and Paul.  Originally built in the 10th century, the castle was rebuilt by Barbarossa in 1168, again by Filippo Maria Visconti in 1413, and by the Sforza family of Milan in the late 15th century. The castle’s exterior retains its Renaissance architectural features, such as the grand entrance tower, the curtain wall and the garden.  The castle passed from the Sforza family to Luchino del Maino and was eventually divided and sold to private individuals. The Galliate municipality took over and subsequently restored a part of the castle.  Today, it houses the civic library, the Angelo Bozzola Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Achille Varzi Museum, dedicated to the driver.

Also on this day:

1464: The birth of noblewoman Clara Gonzaga

1586: The birth of musician Claudio Saracini

1878: The birth of career burglar Gino Meneghetti

1888: The birth of abstract painter Alberto Magnelli


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