Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807-1882) was an Italian military general, politician, and nationalist who played a key role in the unification of Italy in the 19th century. Born in Nice, France, he spent much of his early life as a sailor before becoming involved in political activism and military campaigns for Italian unification. Garibaldi became famous for … Read more
Count Alessandro Giuseppe Antonio Anastasio Volta was born on February 18, 1745, in Como, Lombardy, to a noble family that had lost some of its social status. Unlike his siblings, young Alessandro did not enter the religious life. As a child, he did not show signs of being a prodigy, and his family thought he … Read more
Leonardo Fibonacci, also known as Leonardo of Pisa or Leonardo Bigollo, was an Italian mathematician born in Pisa, Italy, around the year 1175. He is best known for introducing the Hindu-Arabic numeral system to the Western world and for his famous sequence of numbers, now known as the Fibonacci sequence. Fibonacci was born into a … Read more
Not often mentioned with the same reverence as the composer, the work of a librettist is no less important to a genre which, from its inception, sought to combine the magical forces of music and drama to create something greater than the sum of its parts. While Mozart is the very definition of a household … Read more
John Cabot, also known as Giovanni Caboto in Italian, was an Italian navigator and explorer who is best known for his voyages to North America in the late 15th century. He was born in Genoa, Italy, around 1450, and little is known about his early life. Other records suggest he was born in Gaeta (in … Read more
Olinto De Pretto was born on October 28, 1857, in Vicenza, Italy, into a family of wealthy landowners. He grew up in a time of significant social and political changes in Italy, including the unification of the country and the shift towards a more industrialized economy. De Pretto showed a talent for mathematics and physics … Read more
Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527) was an Italian Renaissance philosopher, writer, and politician. He was born in Florence and served as a diplomat and advisor to the Florentine Republic for many years, but he was eventually imprisoned and exiled after the city was taken over by the Medici family. Machiavelli is best known for his political treatise, … Read more
Christopher Columbus (Cristoforo Colombo in Italian; Christoffa in Ligurian dialect) was born in Genoa in 1451. He had little education as a boy, and only learned to read and write as an adult. So he went to sea, as did many Genovese boys, and voyaged in the Mediterranean. In 1476 he was shipwrecked off Portugal, … Read more