List of Famous people born in Italy
Sandro Botticelli
Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi, known as Sandro Botticelli, was an Italian painter of the Early Renaissance. Botticelli's posthumous reputation suffered until the late 19th century, when he was rediscovered by the Pre-Raphaelites who stimulated a reappraisal of his work. Since then, his paintings have been seen to represent the linear grace of Early Renaissance painting.
Alberto Dell’Acqua
Alberto Dell'Acqua is an Italian stuntman and actor. He appeared in more than forty films since 1955 mostly Italian Spaghetti Westerns, and was often credited as Robert Widmark, Cole Kitosh, Al Waterman and Albert Nova.
Christina of Bolsena
Christina of Bolsena, also known as Christina of Tyre, or in the Eastern Orthodox Church as Christina the Great Martyr, is venerated as a Christian martyr of the 3rd century. Archaeological excavations of an underground cemetery constructed at her tomb have shown that she was venerated at Bolsena by the fourth century.
Valentina Cortese
Valentina Cortese was an Italian actress. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in François Truffaut's Day for Night (1973).
Giovanni Solinas
Giovanni Solinas, also known as Gianni Solinas, is an Italian football manager. He has managed teams in Algeria, Saudi Arabia and South Africa.
Carla Gravina
Carla Gravina is an Italian actress and politician. She received a Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress for her role in La terrazza (1980). Her other notable roles were in Love and Chatter (1957), Esterina (1959), and The Long Silence (1993). Gravina used to be a member of the Chamber of Deputies.
Cosima Wagner
Cosima Wagner was the daughter of the Hungarian pianist and composer Franz Liszt and Marie d'Agoult. She became the second wife of the German composer Richard Wagner, and with him founded the Bayreuth Festival as a showcase for his stage works; after his death she devoted the rest of her life to the promotion of his music and philosophy. Commentators have recognised Cosima as the principal inspiration for Wagner's later works, particularly Parsifal.
Mikelangelo Loconte
Mikelangelo Loconte is an Italian singer, author, composer, musician, performer and artistic director. He began his acting and performing career in France, in the musical Les Nouveaux Nomades by Claude Barzotti and Anne-Marie Gaspard. Without speaking French, he recorded all his songs in a studio using phonetic writing in the early years of his career.
Ilary Blasi
Ilary Blasi is an Italian showgirl, model, television personality, and former child actress.
Britannicus
Tiberius Claudius Caesar Britannicus, usually called Britannicus, was the son of Roman emperor Claudius and his third wife Valeria Messalina. For a time he was considered his father's heir, but that changed after his mother's downfall in 48, when it was revealed she had engaged in a bigamous marriage without Claudius' knowledge. The next year, his father married Agrippina the Younger, Claudius' fourth and final marriage. Their marriage was followed by the adoption of Agrippina's son, Lucius Domitius, whose name became Nero as a result. His step-brother would later be married to his sister Octavia, and soon eclipsed him as Claudius' heir. Following his father's death in October 54, Nero became emperor. The sudden death of Britannicus shortly before his fourteenth birthday is reported by all extant sources as being the result of poisoning on Nero's orders—as Claudius' natural son, he represented a threat to Nero's claim to the throne.