CELEBRITIES from Italy

Top 6

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary Italian Celebrities of all time. This list of famous Italian Celebrities is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity.

1. Ötzi (-3345 - -3255)

With an HPI of 78.72, Ötzi is the most famous Italian Celebrity.  His biography has been translated into 66 different languages on wikipedia.

Ötzi, also called The Iceman, is the natural mummy of a man who lived between 3350 and 3105 BC. Ötzi's remains were discovered on 19 September 1991, in the Ötztal Alps (hence the nickname "Ötzi", German: [œtsi]) at the Austria–Italy border. He is Europe's oldest known natural human mummy, offering an unprecedented view of Chalcolithic (Copper Age) Europeans. Because of the presence of an arrowhead embedded in his left shoulder and various other wounds, researchers believe that Ötzi was killed by another person. The nature of his life and the circumstances of his death are the subject of much investigation and speculation. His remains and personal belongings are on exhibit at the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in Bolzano, South Tyrol, Italy.

2. Simonetta Vespucci (1453 - 1476)

With an HPI of 69.11, Simonetta Vespucci is the 2nd most famous Italian Celebrity.  Her biography has been translated into 29 different languages.

Simonetta Vespucci (née Cattaneo; c. 1453 – 26 April 1476), nicknamed la bella Simonetta ("the fair Simonetta"), was an Italian noblewoman from Genoa, the wife of Marco Vespucci of Florence and the cousin-in-law of Amerigo Vespucci. She was known as the greatest beauty of her age in Italy, and was allegedly the model for many paintings by Sandro Botticelli, Piero di Cosimo, and other Florentine painters. Some art historians have taken issue with these attributions, which the Victorian critic John Ruskin has been blamed for promulgating.

3. Rosalia Lombardo (1918 - 1920)

With an HPI of 63.95, Rosalia Lombardo is the 3rd most famous Italian Celebrity.  Her biography has been translated into 28 different languages.

Rosalia Lombardo (13 December 1918 – 6 December 1920) was a Palermitan child who died of pneumonia, resulting from the Spanish flu, one week before her second birthday. Rosalia's father, Mario Lombardo, grieving her death, asked Alfredo Salafia, an embalmer, to preserve her remains. Sometimes called "Sleeping Beauty", hers was one of the last corpses to be admitted to the Capuchin catacombs of Palermo in Sicily.

4. Virginia Oldoini, Countess of Castiglione (1837 - 1899)

With an HPI of 59.47, Virginia Oldoini, Countess of Castiglione is the 4th most famous Italian Celebrity.  Her biography has been translated into 21 different languages.

Virginia Oldoini Rapallini, Countess of Castiglione (23 March 1837 – 28 November 1899), better known as La Castiglione, was an Italian aristocrat who achieved notoriety as a mistress of Emperor Napoleon III of France. She was also a significant figure in the early history of photography.

5. Cecilia Gallerani (1473 - 1536)

With an HPI of 59.46, Cecilia Gallerani is the 5th most famous Italian Celebrity.  Her biography has been translated into 18 different languages.

Cecilia Gallerani (Italian pronunciation: [tʃeˈtʃiːlja ɡalleˈraːni]; early 1473 – 1536) was the favourite and most celebrated of the many mistresses of Ludovico Sforza, known as Lodovico il Moro, Duke of Milan. She is best known as the subject of Leonardo da Vinci's painting Lady with an Ermine (c. 1489). While posing for the painting, she invited Leonardo, who at the time was working as court artist for Sforza, to meetings at which Milanese intellectuals discussed philosophy and other subjects. Gallerani herself presided over these discussions.

6. Milena Miconi (b. 1971)

With an HPI of 38.86, Milena Miconi is the 6th most famous Italian Celebrity.  Her biography has been translated into 30 different languages.

Milena Miconi (born 15 December 1971) is an Italian actress and former model. She is an advocate for Parent Project', an organization for children suffering from muscular dystrophy.