On This Day: children’s author Gianni Rodari dies
The creator of beloved vegetable rebel Cipollino, Gianni Rodari, winner of children’s literature’s highest honour, passed away on 14 April 1980.
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Category: History of Italy
On this day: Treaty of Lodi signed
9 April 1454 — On this day, five rival Italian powers signed the Treaty of Lodi, on the banks of the river Adda, that gave the peninsula four decades of relative peace.
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On this day: The death of Lorenzo the Magnificent
8 April 1492 — Lorenzo the Magnificent, the man who made Florence the centre of the Renaissance world, took his last breath at the villa of Careggi, aged just 43.
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On this day: Futurist pioneer Gino Severini born
The painter and mosaicist Gino Severini was born on 7 April 1883 in the hilltop Tuscan town of Cortona. A leading figure in early 20th-century Italian art, Severini became one of the most internationally connected members of the Futurist movement, bridging artistic developments in Italy and Paris before moving through Cubism and later Neoclassicism.
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Pompeii’s walls reveal evidence of the ancient world’s ‘machine gun’
The ruins of Pompeii have once again rewritten the historical record, casting new light on the military technology of the ancient world. A team of Italian researchers has identified impact marks on the city’s northern defensive walls that they believe were made by a polybolos. The Greek-engineered repeating artillery weapon (‘machine gun’) was capable of […]
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On this day: birth of architect Francesco Laparelli
Francesco Laparelli was born on 5 April 1521 in Cortona, one of the ancient Etruscan cities of what is now Tuscany, into one of the city’s wealthiest and most distinguished families. It was a beginning that gave him access, education and connections, and the opportunity to create one of Europe’s most extraordinary capital cities – […]
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On this day: birth of Maria de’ Medici
Born with every gift Florence could bestow, Cosimo I’s brilliant eldest daughter, Maria de’ Medici, was dead at seventeen. Her story casts a long shadow over one of history’s most powerful families.
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On this day: birth of actor Gaetano Casanova
Gaetano Casanova, the Italian actor and ballet dancer best remembered as the father of Europe’s most celebrated seducer, was born on 2 April 1697 in Parma.
Continue Reading![Fragment of portrait of Joachim Murat, Prince d’Empire, Grand Duke of Clèves and of Berg, King of Naples under the name of Napoleon in 1808 (1767-1815), Marshal of France in 1804 By François Gérard - [1] See full portrait:[2], Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=264241](https://italynews.online/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Murat2.jpg)
On this day: Gioacchino Murat issues Rimini Proclamation
On 30 March 1815, a declaration was made in the Adriatic city of Rimini that would echo through Italian history for generations. “Italians! The hour has come to engage in your highest destiny… From the Alps to the straits of Sicily, there is but one cry — Italian independence.” The words were stirring, visionary, and […]
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On this day: birth of artist Fra Bartolommeo
Born 28 March 1472 in Savignano di Prato, Tuscany, Fra Bartolommeo, a Dominican friar and High Renaissance master, whose figures were said to move “with a seraphic grace that must have struck the young Raphael with the force of revelation.”
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