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Library
Storia
Alessandro Barbero · youtube-channel · italian
Italy's most beloved historian, who tells the past like a master storyteller: the Middle Ages, the Longobardi, the rivolta dei Ciompi, Caporetto and the First World War, Waterloo, the kidnapping of Aldo Moro, Dante, Constantine. His lectures are clipped endlessly on YouTube and gathered as a podcast.
Alessandro Barbero · book · italian
His Dante is a superb biography of the poet in his turbulent age; Caporetto retells Italy's great First World War catastrophe.
RAI · series · italian
The national broadcaster's history strands, including Passato e Presente with Paolo Mieli and Il tempo e la storia, free on RaiPlay.
Alberto Angela · series · italian
The warm, erudite popularizer whose programs (Ulisse, Stanotte a, Meraviglie, Passaggio a Nord-Ovest) walk you through Italy's art and history by night in empty monuments.
Carlo Lucarelli · series · italian
The crime writer's gripping series on Italian mysteries and crimes, including a powerful episode on the Strage di Bologna.
Indro Montanelli, Roberto Gervaso · book · italian
The famous narrative history of Italy, opinionated and readable, a postwar classic.
Discorso del 3 gennaio
Mussolini's speech to parliament marks the open beginning of the Fascist dictatorship.
La Casa dei Bambini
The educator opens her first school in Rome, launching the Montessori method.
Morte di Vittorio Emanuele II
The first king of united Italy dies; he is entombed in the Pantheon.
Terremoto del Val di Noto
A catastrophic quake devastates south-eastern Sicily; the rebuilt towns become Baroque jewels.
Terremoto della Marsica
A devastating quake in Abruzzo kills tens of thousands.
Anni del primo dopoguerra
Across Europe the violent postwar years begin; in Italy the biennio rosso is starting.
Il teatro di Goldoni
A date to remember the Venetian playwright who reformed Italian comedy.
Nasce Fellini
The great director, from Rimini in Romagna, is born.
Guardia Svizzera Pontificia
The Pope's Swiss Guard is established in Rome.
L'età di Casanova
A date to recall the Venetian adventurer and writer Giacomo Casanova.
Terremoto del 1348
A great medieval quake shakes northern Italy, recorded by Petrarch.
Morte di Giuseppe Verdi
The great operatic composer dies in Milan; the nation mourns.
Giorno della Memoria
Italy marks the Giorno della Memoria for the victims of the Shoah.
Giuseppe Garibaldi
Giuseppe Garibaldi, hero of Italian unification, was born in Nice on 4 July 1807; January marks many of his campaigns.
L'Italia repubblicana
As the young Republic finds its feet, the world loses Gandhi; nonviolence enters Italian debate.
Prima di Otello
Verdi's Otello premieres at La Scala to triumph.
La stampa in Italia
A date for the printing revolution that Venice soon led in Europe.
Trionfo di Otello
Verdi returns to opera in old age with a masterpiece at La Scala.
Repubblica Romana
Mazzini's short-lived Roman Republic is declared, a beacon of the Risorgimento.
Trattato di pace di Parigi
Italy signs the postwar peace, losing Istria and its colonies; the Foibe tragedies are remembered on this day.
Patti Lateranensi
The treaty between Italy and the Holy See creates Vatican City.
Manifesto del Futurismo
Filippo Tommaso Marinetti publishes the Futurist Manifesto, igniting an avant-garde.
Alessandro Volta
A date to honor the physicist whose name lives on in the volt.
Rogo di Giordano Bruno
The philosopher is executed in Rome for heresy, a martyr of free thought.
Morte di Michelangelo
The supreme Renaissance artist dies in Rome; his body is brought to Florence.
Il Barocco musicale
A date to honor Italy's Baroque composers, from Vivaldi to Boccherini.
Il barbiere di Siviglia
Rossini's comic masterpiece premieres in Rome, after a famously disastrous first night.
Età dell'Inquisizione
A date to reflect on the long history of censorship and free inquiry in Italy.
Firenze rinascimentale
A date for the flowering of art and humanism in fifteenth-century Florence.
Battaglia di Adua
Ethiopia decisively defeats invading Italy, a shock to colonial ambitions.
Nasce Lucio Dalla
Bologna's beloved singer-songwriter is born; he immortalized the date in the song 4 marzo 1943.
Nasce Pasolini
The poet, filmmaker, and intellectual is born in Bologna.
Nasce Michelangelo
Michelangelo Buonarroti is born near Arezzo, a titan of the Renaissance.
Nasce Amerigo Vespucci
The navigator who gave his name to the Americas is born in Florence.
Emigrazione italiana
A date to reflect on the great Italian emigration that shaped the Americas.
Elezione di Papa Francesco
Jorge Bergoglio is elected pope, the first from the Americas, in Rome.
Rapimento di Aldo Moro
The Red Brigades kidnap the Christian Democrat leader, killing his escort; he is murdered 55 days later.
Unità d'Italia
The Kingdom of Italy is proclaimed, with Victor Emmanuel II as king.
Cinque Giornate di Milano
Milanese rise up and expel the Austrians, a key Risorgimento revolt.
Giornata della memoria delle vittime di mafia
Italy marks a day for the innocent victims of organized crime.
Fondazione dei Fasci
Mussolini founds the Fasci di Combattimento in Milan.
Fondazione dei Fasci
Mussolini founds the movement that becomes Fascism, in Milan's Piazza San Sepolcro.
Eccidio delle Fosse Ardeatine
Nazi forces murder 335 Italians in Rome in reprisal; a deep national wound.
Trattati di Roma
The treaty founding the European Economic Community is signed in Rome.
I promessi sposi
A date for Manzoni, whose novel shaped the modern Italian language.
La musica dell'Ottocento
A date for the romantic music that flourished across nineteenth-century Italy.
Morte di Raffaello
The Renaissance master Raffaello Sanzio dies in Rome on his 37th birthday.
Morte di Lorenzo il Magnifico
The Florentine statesman and patron of the Renaissance dies.
La Resistenza sull'Appennino
A date for the partisan war fought in the mountains above Bologna.
Memoria e testimonianza
A date to honor Primo Levi's work of witness; he died in 1987.
Nasce Leonardo
The supreme polymath of the Renaissance is born near Vinci.
Elezioni del 1948
The pivotal Cold War election; the Christian Democrats defeat the Popular Front.
Natale di Roma
Tradition dates the founding of Rome to 21 April 753 BC.
Bologna risorgimentale
A date to recall Bologna's role in the unification of Italy.
Festa della Liberazione
Italy celebrates liberation from Nazi-Fascism; the partisan anthem is Bella Ciao.
Congiura dei Pazzi
An attack on the Medici in Florence cathedral kills Giuliano; Lorenzo survives.
Morte di Mussolini
Partisans capture and execute Mussolini near Lake Como as the war ends.
La fine della guerra
As the Reich collapses, Italy's long liberation is nearly complete.
Primo Maggio
International Workers' Day, deeply felt in red Emilia, marked by the big free concert in Rome.
Morte di Leonardo
Leonardo dies in France, having reshaped art and science forever.
Spedizione dei Mille
Garibaldi and his Thousand set sail from Quarto to liberate the south.
Ritrovamento del corpo di Moro
Moro's body is found in the boot of a car in Rome; the same day, Peppino Impastato is murdered by the Mafia.
Omicidio di Peppino Impastato
The anti-Mafia activist is killed in Sicily, the same day Moro's body is found.
Sbarco a Marsala
Garibaldi's Thousand land in Sicily, beginning the conquest of the south.
Primo Giro d'Italia
The first edition of Italy's great cycling race sets off from Milan.
Le origini del cinema italiano
A date to recall the silent-era roots of Italy's film industry.
Battaglia di Calatafimi
Garibaldi's first victory in Sicily during the Risorgimento.
Legge Basaglia
Italy passes Law 180, closing the psychiatric asylums, inspired by Franco Basaglia.
Strage di Capaci
The Mafia murders anti-Mafia judge Giovanni Falcone, his wife, and escort.
Italia entra in guerra
Italy declares war on Austria-Hungary, beginning its catastrophic Great War.
Strage dell'Heysel
39 people, mostly Juventus fans, die in Brussels before the European Cup final.
Festa della Repubblica
Italians vote by referendum to abolish the monarchy and found the Republic. Women vote nationally for the first time.
Liberazione di Roma
Allied troops enter Rome, the first Axis capital to fall.
Il coraggio di Matteotti
A date to honor the deputy murdered for denouncing Fascist fraud.
Delitto Matteotti
The socialist deputy Giacomo Matteotti is murdered by Fascists after denouncing electoral fraud.
Tosca di Puccini
A date for Puccini, whose Tosca premiered in Rome in 1900.
Il modello emiliano
A date to consider the Emilian cooperative economy that shaped your new region.
Bologna medievale
A date for the medieval commune and university that made Bologna La Dotta.
Battaglia di Solferino
A bloody Risorgimento battle that later inspired the founding of the Red Cross.
Verso la Grande Guerra
The assassination at Sarajevo begins the chain that pulls Italy into the First World War a year later.
Pionieri del volo
A date to recall Italy's aviation pioneers in the early twentieth century.
Nasce Garibaldi
The hero of the two worlds, central to Italian unification, is born in Nice.
Italia campione del mondo
The Azzurri beat France on penalties in Berlin for a fourth World Cup.
Sbarco in Sicilia
Operation Husky begins the Allied liberation of Italy.
Mundial 1982
Italy beat West Germany in Madrid; Pertini celebrates in the stands.
Attentato a Togliatti
The Communist leader is shot in Rome; a general strike and near-insurrection follow.
Italiani in Spagna
A date to recall the Italians who fought, on both sides, in Spain.
Strage di via D'Amelio
The Mafia murders judge Paolo Borsellino and his escort in Palermo.
G8 di Genova
Mass protests and the death of Carlo Giuliani mark a turning point in Italian activism.
Santa Caterina da Siena
The saint and writer urges the pope's return to Rome; a patron of Italy.
Caduta del fascismo
The Grand Council deposes Mussolini; the King has him arrested.
Regicidio di Monza
Anarchist Gaetano Bresci kills King Umberto I at Monza.
Strage di Bologna
A neofascist bomb at Bologna Centrale station kills 85 and wounds over 200. The station clock is stopped forever at 10:25.
Tragedia di Marcinelle
A Belgian mine fire kills 262, many of them Italian migrant workers; now Day of Italians in the World.
Torre di Pisa
Construction begins on the bell tower that would famously lean.
Crollo del Ponte Morandi
The motorway bridge in Genoa collapses, killing 43, a national tragedy.
Ferragosto
Italy's great summer holiday, when the cities empty for the sea and mountains.
Olimpiadi di Roma 1960
A date to recall the 1960 Rome Olympics, where Abebe Bikila ran barefoot to gold.
Eruzione del Vesuvio
Vesuvius buries Pompeii and Herculaneum, preserving them for two millennia.
L'Italia del Rinascimento
A date to recall the foreign invasions that shaped Renaissance politics.
Il boom economico
A date to consider the postwar boom that transformed Italian life.
Roma antica
A date to consider Roman Bononia and the Via Emilia under your feet.
Firma dell'armistizio
Italy secretly signs the armistice with the Allies, announced on 8 September.
Armistizio dell'8 settembre
Italy's armistice with the Allies; the country descends into occupation and civil war, and the Resistance begins.
Il compromesso storico
A date to recall Enrico Berlinguer's proposal that shaped 1970s Italian politics.
Morte di Dante
Dante Alighieri, father of the Italian language, dies in exile in Ravenna, where his tomb still stands.
Questione meridionale
A date to reflect on the enduring north-south question in Italian life.
Presa di Roma
Italian troops enter Rome through the breach at Porta Pia, completing unification.
Savonarola a Firenze
A date for the friar whose bonfire of the vanities shook Renaissance Florence.
Marconi e la radio
The Bologna-born inventor pioneers transatlantic wireless; he later wins the Nobel.
Nasce Caravaggio
The revolutionary painter of light and shadow is born, likely in Milan.
San Francesco e i frati
A date for the Franciscan movement that transformed medieval spirituality.
La grande emigrazione
A date to honor the millions of Italians who emigrated around the turn of the century.
Il Medioevo italiano
A date for the maritime republics and the medieval Mediterranean world.
Morte di San Francesco
The patron saint of Italy dies; his feast is a national day.
Battaglia di Lepanto
A Holy League fleet, led by Venice and Spain, defeats the Ottomans at sea.
Disastro del Vajont
A landslide into the Vajont reservoir kills nearly 2,000 people, a tragedy of negligence.
Cristoforo Colombo
The Genoese navigator makes landfall in the Americas.
Rastrellamento del ghetto di Roma
Over a thousand Roman Jews are deported to Auschwitz; few return.
Le sanzioni per l'Etiopia
The League of Nations sanctions Italy over its invasion of Ethiopia.
Le avanguardie
A date to consider Futurism and Italy's place in the European avant-garde.
Marcia su Roma
Mussolini's march brings Fascism to power.
Disfatta di Caporetto
Italy's catastrophic First World War defeat unfolds; a word still used for any rout.
Volta della Sistina
Michelangelo's ceiling is shown to the public for the first time.
Omicidio di Pasolini
Pier Paolo Pasolini is killed at Ostia; the circumstances remain disputed.
Armistizio di Villa Giusti
Austria-Hungary signs the armistice ending the war on the Italian front.
Giorno dell'Unità Nazionale
The armistice with Austria-Hungary ends the First World War for Italy; now Armed Forces Day.
Alluvione di Firenze
The Arno floods Florence, damaging countless artworks and books; volunteers, the angeli del fango, rush to save them.
La svolta della Bolognina
Days later, in Bologna's Bolognina, the Italian Communist Party announces its transformation.
Leonardo a Milano
A date for Leonardo's Milanese years, when he painted the Last Supper.
Strage di Nassiriya
A bombing in Iraq kills 19 Italians, the country's worst military loss since the war.
Bramante e San Pietro
A date for the architect who began the new Saint Peter's Basilica.
L'Illuminismo italiano
A date for Beccaria, Verri, and the Milanese Enlightenment that influenced Europe.
Terremoto dell'Irpinia
A powerful quake in Campania kills nearly 3,000 and exposes failures of the state.
Giornata contro la violenza sulle donne
The international day, widely marked in Italy, against gender-based violence.
Le radici del neorealismo
A date to recall the neorealist cinema that astonished the postwar world.
L'età dei Comuni
A date for the free communes of medieval Italy, Bologna among the greatest.
Nasce Bernini
Gian Lorenzo Bernini, master of the Baroque, is born.
Festa dell'Immacolata
The feast day when many Italian families put up the Christmas tree and presepe.
Carducci premio Nobel
Giosuè Carducci, who taught at Bologna, becomes Italy's first Nobel laureate in Literature.
L'Italia romantica
A date for the Romantic travelers who fell in love with Italy.
Strage di Piazza Fontana
A bomb in a Milan bank kills 17, opening the dark anni di piombo, the years of lead.
Il Cinquecento
A date to recall the turbulent, brilliant Italian sixteenth century.
Tradizione universitaria
A date to honor UniBo, founded in 1088, the oldest university in the world.
Giacomo Leopardi
A date for the poet of Recanati, one of Italy's greatest lyric voices.
Morte di Stradivari
The greatest violin maker, Antonio Stradivari of Cremona, dies.
L'America italiana
A date to recall the Italian-American culture that shaped the twentieth century.
Incoronazione di Carlo Magno
Charlemagne is crowned Holy Roman Emperor in Rome on Christmas Day.
Alle origini del cinema
A date to recall the early years of Italian cinema, soon a world force.
Promulgazione della Costituzione
The Republic's Constitution is signed, taking effect on 1 January 1948.
Il verismo operistico
A date for Mascagni, Leoncavallo, and the verismo that swept Italian opera.
Verso il nuovo millennio
A date to mark Italy's passage into the twenty-first century and the euro era.